Friday, May 5, 2017

prosaic interlude #8

The Sieve of hypocrisies and hyperbole

When did America become such a callous place to live? So uncaring, calculating and manipulative? These House Republicans, many of whom claim very Christian-based roots, just eradicated any charitable act they've ever done by voting yes on a bill that will put 24,000,000 off health care. Hand to their god, they will go straight to hell. They wrote The Book, they wrote the bill (and did not read it), and will celebrate both. Thankfully, as Schoolhouse Rock taught the generation Xers, Bill is a few steps from becoming law.

This scrap of success in an administration grasping at held lung-fulls of air for one of the many wins it was to have makes it so clear. Their well-rehearsed, lobbied, money-driven, pro-life balk is a giant load of crap. Is each child, as a barely consolable POTUS said after seeing sarin gas killing babies, deserving of a life or not? Pick one, it can't be both ways. Balk is balk and talk is talk, and you can't have either without the walk. How much legislative energy and taxpayer money has been spent over the decades as the right for an unborn baby to live is contested. Its worth may be weighed, its impact on society, society's impact on it, the ability of the mother and (hopefully) the father to raise it into a healthy child are all considered. Let's say that child is diagnosed with a genetic heart malady by the time they are two. A pre-existing condition. What if the child is not fortunate enough to be born to someone like Jimmy Kimmel who has insurance? Someone who could afford out-of-pocket fees? I hazard that their argument might be that God, in his infinite wisdom, has babies with per-existing conditions, or preemies needing care only to wealthy parents. What is wrong with this idea, even if it is conceived? A struggling family to begin with might not be well fed, so much so that the mother bares a malnourished baby that requires weeks of costly pre-natal care. How does it make sense to fight for the right to life but then when that life begins out of the womb suddenly it is devalued. What is this bullshitted double-speak? Are we talking about humans or cars?

I have never seen such hypocrisy. The US government now is a circuitous route. It is the T-4 they take. It runs from Wall Street past slums, projects, public hospitals, Planed Parenthood, NRA, middle-class America, straight into the pockets of the DeVosses, Trumps, et al. Al should really be ashamed. This diabolical fast-track to enriching the stitching of Armani suits is not the America anyone knew. I highly doubt it's the America those white middle-class back roads baby-makers saw. Some of them voted , negating crooked Hillary (who I can't imagine even thinking of taking merits of the ACA away) for a fraud who swore up and down that he'd make health care accessible to EVERYONE. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot—that parcel, those poor shlubs who felt “economically left behind” somehow see their station in life getting better with this guy? Not voting for Trump and voting for Clinton is the wisest thing I've ever done. It's the thing of which I can be the most proud. I can rest in peace. And, if I want to be a vindictive asshole, when I see a dying man who voted for Trump and had health care taken away, I'll say “I did not vote for the guy.” I'd rub it in if I were so inclined.


Back in the 15 minutes of Sarah Palin, when everyone right of Wall Street feared SOCIALISM, the term death panels was thrown around with a hyperbolic truthfulness. To me the scenario of a team of doctors conversing in the hall, determining your fate, was created. They were more sterile than sterile is, goosestepping like washed-up wanna-be Nazi eugenic medical personnel. It was medicine by the numbers. However yesterday those death panels were wide open, no bars held, no need to pull a plug. These thugs would not even allow a cancer to make it to the plug-pulling, decision of any anal stage.

Actually, in those death panel hyperbole days, I was buying insurance through an HMO. There was no goose dropping lining the walk but I did get the sense it was more of business than anything resembling a helpful, caring, efficient doctor visit. A decade later things have changed, and I am (or was) benefiting from the ACA. My experience has been much better. Smoother, more efficient, less waiting. Doctors do not work under a fat-cat CEO's gun. I know from working in medical records that a doctor is (was) supposed to spend a finite amount of time on each patient. Usually that was between 8 and 15 minuets. Working for the “man.” Clinics like the ACA. Hospitals like the ACA. Every association for any disease likes it. They still have at least an ounce of compassion. They believe the future of the first of the declaration of independence's inalienable right is not hyperbole.

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