**Alarm Bells** **Red Flags** **Spidey Sense Tingling**
There is an alarming set of conditions in the USA right now. Along with all the total infringements of personal privacy imposed by the Patriot's Act where you can be tapped without warrants and detained indefinitely without trial, did you know that securing a passport is becoming increasingly difficult? That "free" americans are being denied permission to leave the country. While it isn't widespread yet and the reasons are professed to be "administrative" it still has the same net effect. You can't leave the county. Hmmm...
Well... I guess who would want to leave, right? So lets all stay. After all the US would never use force on citizens to stay, right? Well... what if they just say "if you leave and you get sick, then when you return we'll just let you die (unless you're rich and pay all medical costs)." Is that the same thing as holding a gun to your head? Given that mortality is guaranteed even if somewhat delayable. If the US legally decided to let your children die untreated because you left the US work somewhere else... would you leave? Well guess what... that's exactly what the US has decided to do. Insurance companies are not required to cover any medical condition detect while outside a US group health insurance plan. That's the law that your Congressmen passed with HIPPA. Sorta iffy if you want to work abroad.
What is more insidous is this also means that if you don't participate in a group plan (because you are self employed or not employed), then they don't have to cover either... fun! So now we all have to have at least one member of the household working full-time for a large corporation or we get to die untreated. Sure you can carry a costly private (individual) health plan at 3 to 4 times the cost of a group plan, but when those plans cap out they are canceled.
I know we all assume we aren't going to get really sick. We think we're all okay... we exercise... etc. But you know what? It doesn't matter how healthy you are, eventually you get old/sick/injured. Even if you live in perfect health until the day you get hit by a bus and instantly killed... what about your wife, your kids, your kids' kids? Extend your view to the extended family around you. Which of them will be killed by the US government by not allowing them health care? Killed. Not "mistreated" or "legally violated", but killed as sure as if they hired a soldier to shoot them in the street.
I remember being taught in school that the US was forbidden to use propaganda tactics on the US population. I was lied to. Oh I'm sure it's a law somewhere, but it's not true today. We pound are chests and claim "we are the best." But are we? Are we really the best? If we hedge and say "well maybe not the best, but damn close to the top" well then where are we really?
Capitalism... pretty cool idea and arguably a good system. Sure it's a good system. But anytime you use a tool you should know what it is doing and how it works. You should be aware of its dangers as well as its strengths. I think we can look around and see its good points. But don't forget to acknowledge its shortfalls. The driving force behind capitalism is the building of wealth. People support capitalism because they believe eventually they are financially compensated for it and prosper. The problem with capitalism is that it has no natural check points. Its only mechanism is wealth and the generation of more wealth. If something doesn't generate wealth, it tends to die off. This arguably okay when the market is new cars for example. Strong products live and weaker products faulter. But what happens when the product is heart surgery? Who makes money from heart surgery? And further what happens if heart surgery doesn't make any money? In capitalism, supply must meet demand before the price of goods is established. In other words, the price of heart surgery continues to rise until the market can no longer afford it and the price stabilizes. But you can't decide not have heart surgery... so the price never stabilizes. People will pay any price.
This mixture is scary. Much of what is deperately wrong in the US is so enmeshed in policy, politics, legality and lethality, that the peaceful solutions may not be what people immediately turn to. When children die, parents get angry. They don't always just camp on the President's ranch in protest. In other countries wars start when people start dying. We may discover that violence abroad isn't our main concern... In the 1960's over 50,000 US citizens marched on Washington. Over 20,000 of those marched on the Pentegon. The army surrounded the building with armed US soldiers. Luckily none of those soldier's had been given ammunition and the crowd didn't explode to full blown riot. What would happen today?
Who pays the bill when you need some antibiotics isn't really the issue. But don't ignore healthcare in the US as something that congress will take care of. The wealthy and privledged of the US make nearly all policy decisions and they are not motivated to solve these issues. They are not affected, they have all the wealth they need to cover costs (and group insurance plans). But we can not ignore that millions of US citizens do not. If we ignore them, they will be forced to die or get our attention. Which do you think they will do? Which would you do?
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