An Earache My Eye

So I spent the day with the most horrific earache I have ever had. It felt like a shotgun blast to the side of my head. Which got me to thinking, if we get universal health care, will I be able to call my doctor and see him immediately? I didn't do that today, but had I wanted to, I would have been seen right away. That is part of the greatest health care system in the world that I would definitely miss.

I do know a little about health care for everyone. I was working when I became ill, but since I had to quit my job immediately, I was not able to pay for my COBRA. When I was finally diagnosed and told that I would not be able to return to work, my COBRA was picked up by the county I lived in. Unfortunately, the numbskull that worked for the county let my insurance lapse the day of my open-chest operation, but I still got the surgury that I needed, plus all other required care until I received Social Security disability. Of course that SSD took 2 1/2 years, two denials and the hiring of a Social Security advocate to get what everyone agreed should have been approved immediately, but there was in fact a safety net that was in place to protect me and others in need. Yes I had to file for bankruptcy because of this, but that is just another safety net in the system. Thems the breaks. I am not OWED a perfect life by anyone. The U.S. Constitution affords me the right to the pursuit of happiness, not happiness itself.

Does our health care system need an overhaul? The answer is partially yes, but mostly no. Let people buy insurance across state lines, require drug companies to charge no more here than they do in other countries, and have people with preexisting conditions go into a subsidized pool that will cover them for expenses related to the past ailment, coupled with a regular insurance policy to cover everything else. This would solve 90% of the perceived problems in our system, but just like people, the system will never be perfect.

I am grateful for all of the programs that have helped me stay alive and be able to live a reasonably comfortable life. If these supports hadn't existed, I probably would have died. That is how it was in the old days, and could be now if we hadn't all agreed to have compassion for others. I hope that someday I will be a productive member of society again, so I don't want the government to start a massive entitlement that will keep me trapped in it's clutches. But you never know what you will get when you let the folks in Washington have too much power.

Thinkings by a Madman

Ok, so I am not REALLY a madman, but there are some things that upset me, and some people probably do think that I'm crazy. This blog is more about my current thinking, rather than about what I necessarily believe to be true. Since I have been through my own heavens and hells, I feel that I am as qualified as anyone to give my opinions on all subjects. If you don't like them, that is fine because I feel you are entitled to your opinions as well.

In the future, I will write about politics, government, religion, race relations (ethnicity, probably not NASCAR), drugs of all kinds, legal and illegal, travel, photography, nature and a thousand other topics. There will probably not be any ongoing theme to this blog, but there will probably be a main point of most of the posts. After all, the only constant is change.

I suppose a little background is in order. I consider myself a conservative, but I define that quite differently from the way others do. I am a nature photographer, environmentalist, conservationist and capitalist. I am college educated, was a single parent for a while, and I am handicapped with a neuromuscular autoimmune disease and a gastrointestinal autoimmune disease. I am not a victim, stuff just happened to happen to me. I enjoy speaking with people from throughout the world and across all demographics. I believe that everyone should be allowed to have their own beliefs, as long as they aren't impinging on the lives other people in a directly negative way.

Since I was 14, when I started to really contemplate the Catholic religion that I was being brought up in, I have been agnostic. By this I mean that I think that there are 6+ billion people in the world, all of them has an opinion about a "higher power," and that each opinion is slightly different. That means at the most, only one of us could be exactly right about what a god is, and since I don't believe humans are capable of understanding any diety, I am not going to discount anyone's opinion on the subject. Every "crazy" view has as much likelihood as the next. Some folks will say that an agnostic is a non-believer, but I say that I am an all-believer. There may be a god or gods, there might not be. I believe that man can never know for sure, so it is silly for me to expend energy trying to decipher how best to please this god. I do know that I refuse to blindly accept the rote beliefs of ancient men, as I believe most structured religions are simply a means to control other people with shame and scare tactics.

Well, that's a start. I don't want to control too much of your time, so I will shoot some more at you later. Maybe I'll explain the meaning of life next time, you never know.

Thinking about sleep now,
Papa Nature