The Bell Has Rung on Health Care

On the eve of the death of health reform its time to reflect on just what was the whole debate about. Was it a battle between another government give away program and the basic need for health care? In reality it was a battle between the haves and the have nots. It was painfully ironic that the key to the death of the bill was the election of a senator from Massachusett’s Scott Brown, an anti health reform candidate in a state whose previous senator Ted Kennedy championed the cause of health reform. Also interesting was the fact that anti-abortion groups backed Brown even though in his own words he was “a firm supporter of Roe vs Wade….” It appears the health care defeat was more important then the ideology of the groups. Even though the health care bill allows states to opt out of paying for abortions the facts seemed to be lost in the debate.
“We don’t want to pay for people to get health care.” Besides the fact this statement sounds callous many don’t understand that we all pay for it anyway. When a non-insured person goes to an emergency room who do you think pays for the care? Everyone with health insurance! You really don’t think the hospital just sucks iot up do you? They pass it on to people who have insurance.
Another fact lost in the debate is that seven insurance companies in the US make all the medical decisions for all policy holders in the US. So you thought your doctor was controlling your care? Not. Insurance companies set quality of care, approved procedures, and what tests your doctor can order. I find it especially disturbing that those oblivious Americans seem convinced that an all-inclusive, not-for-profit, government-facilitated health insurance system would be somehow worse than allowing private sector insurers to continue bilking them and denying their claims.
The biggest flaw of all in the system is the denial of people with pre-existing conditions. If you ever have a medical problem and leave your current insurer you will be denied entry into another plan for as long as you live. Even if your medical problem was cured with no chance of return you are “statistically” a risk.
I blame most of the loss of the health plan on the president and the Democratic leadership. When Nancy Pelosi announces the death of the plan Wednesday she better look in the mirror to see who to blame. The party can’t get their act together. That’s what they need to work on before attempting another bill. The president just bit off more then he could chew at once. He needs to pick his fights carefully and not start them all over the block.
So health care is dead at least for now. It will come up again make no mistake about that. Health care will become a reality but only after the arguing parties get their collective heads screwed on right. The bad point is this will only happen after many more will die from lack of adequate care. And that is the real tragedy.

A Tale of Wasted Money

I have returned from a hiatus after writing the blog for several years it got very frustrating that no changes have taken place. A friend however pointed out that change is a slow process and is not instantaneous. With that in mind I will press on into 2010!
Recently the paper reported on the “rezoning” committee of DPS who were looking at overcrowding at Johnson Elementary. Clueless Huckabee, the committee head (who in their right mind made that decision…..) decided the best course was to do nothing. Hmmmmm….and it took a year to figure this out?
In the article it states that they had no way of telling how many students would be affected by boundary changes or what grades they would be in. Oh really? Excuse me Mr Huckabee but IST has a program that does that! Jeez… The program along with the city GIS program tells you a total breakdown of students, racial, male/female, and grade level of each street in the city. By moving a boundary line one street or half a street the resulting changes will be displayed. I don’t know which is more frustrating, the fact they didn’t use the program, or the fact that Huckabee didn’t even know it existed.
The overpopulation could easily be corrected by adjusting zones to Woodberry and Woodrow, both underutilized schools. This isn’t brain surgery.
While we are at it why even keep Woodrow? It is landlocked, outdated, has no parking, lies in a congested zone, and is the least user friendly. Any board with any sense would have closed this albatross. What does our board do? It goes ahead and spends $300,000 on the school that has no business being open!
These are the kind of asinine decisions being made by the board. While other more viable school buildings are having maintenance deferred the least viable building is getting money thrown at it.
The taxpayers of Danville should hold the DPS and City Council (I hold them just as responsible since they control the purse strings) responsible for this total waste of money. I don’t care if they win a hundred fraudulent state awards ( more on that later) it is a poor business decision. If what they are doing is so great why hasn’t it been duplicated in every school in the district? Because it is all smoke and mirrors.
It’s time for citizens to step up and sweep this incompetent board and administration out of their chairs and get people in who have some common sense---- something missing from the current occupants.