Take Two Aspirin and Call Me in the Up-and-Up

This "debate" about healthcare coverage gives me a headache.

Everyone on TV is talking in vagueries, in generalities, in meandering non sequiturs. People should talk about what they themselves want -- in straightforward, plain English.

I'd like to be able to buy my own insurance policy on the open market -- a policy that offers me roughly the same level of coverage that I get from my group plan at work, and for about the same price. Let's say my employer takes $200 out of my paycheck each month to pay my premiums for the group plan. I'd like to keep that $200 myself and use it to buy my own open-market plan, one that would travel with me as I move from job to job (voluntarily or involuntarily), so that I wouldn't have to turn down good jobs with minimal or no coverage and I wouldn't have to sign up for the expensive COBRA program if I'm laid off. Most important, I wouldn't have to worry about being denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition.

By their nature, of course, group plans are less expensive than individual plans. But I'd be willing to pay more by a third or even a half if it meant I would never again have to worry about losing coverage after a job loss or major illness. I also wouldn't have to worry about the no-benefits "enrollment period" most employers require after I get a new job.

What do you want from healthcare itself? I want hospitals, clinics, and physicians' offices to use Internet technologies -- like basic e-mail -- to administer patient records, including tests and procedure reports. It's a scandal -- it's pure idiocy -- that we patients have to contend with illegible photocopies of hard-copy documents which have to be hand-carried back to our GP or on to our next specialist. Why can't those hard copies be scanned and then attached to an e-mail to both the patient and his other doctors? This takes mere seconds. The amount of photocopying, snail-mailing, and hand-carrying that's required in this day and age is ridiculous. Physicians and clinics pay their front-office help to prepare all that -- which takes ten times as long and is ten times as prone to error as it would take to scan and attach electronically.

I also want competition. I want two, three, or four endoscopy centers (where an assembly line of patients is processed) to vie for my business when I need an endoscopy. I want to be able to call each of them to ask for the fee. Let physicians, outpatient clinics, and hospitals compete in pricing for my business. That's the only fair and reliable way to handle what is, after all, a business transaction.

The Long, Hot Summer of Craziness

Lots of silly things going on and being talked about these days: death panels, killing Grandma (Grandpa must already be dead), Socialist health care, the Birthers, bailouts, co-ops, government-run whatever, Cash for Clunkers, never-ending wars in the Middle East, Big Pharma. So many subjects, but it's the health insurance reform debacle -- don't call it health care reform -- that I'm ranting about today, at least in part.

1) Anyone who is now receiving Social Security and Medicare -- and who rails against a public option for health insurance for those under 65 -- should stop receiving such benefits. They should call the proper government office and cancel their benefits. For Social Security and Medicare Part B, it was necessary for those receiving them to apply for such benefits. No one forced them to take either. They're receiving money from a government-run system, health

insurance from a government-run system, both based on a Socialist system.

Social Security, in particular, was based on a similar program in Socialist Germany. Of course, I have no problem receiving either because I believe in such a system. But when you don't, then stop taking the money. Leave more for me. I trust government workers more than I trust insurance company CEOs to do what's best for Americans. Oh, and don't forget that veterans' health care is also based on a Socialist program.

2) The nutty people out there bitching and moaning about death panels and the like that are purportedly contained in current health insurance proposals haven't seen any of the proposals, any of the five that are still in committees in Congress. Neither have I, but at least I'm willing to wait to see what the final one says. Besides, do any of us really think our democratically elected officials would write a bill that would kill off the old people? Old people constitute the biggest voting bloc, all that really matters to politicians. By the way, kudos to Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts for taking on the loonies at his townhall meeting.

3) Then there's this lie that was printed in Investor's Business Daily: "People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless." Only problem is that Stephen Hawking is British, has been under the British health plan his entire lifetime, and he has credited that Socialist system with helping him get to this point. Maybe the conservative editors at the publication didn't know Hawking was born in England and has always lived there. Whether they did or not is not the point. What is the point is the lie that they wrote because of ideological reasons and the laziness they displayed by not checking even the most basic facts. I'm not fond of crazy right-wing ideology, but more importantly, I hate laziness and lying, particularly in people who profess to report the news.

4) Why do so many people who complain about wanting to help to cover everyone with insurance, especially having a public option in the process, throw the Second Amendment rights into the equation? Some of them even wear their guns to political events, going armed to public meetings about health insurance reform. I don't believe they're wearing loaded assault-style rifles and handguns because they care about health insurance reform. The only reason to carry a gun is to kill someone or defend themselves. Defend themselves from whom? I don't know about you but I don't want to go to a meeting where idiots getting riled up about this issue or that are standing around armed with guns. Besides, having a right to carry a gun in certain states does not mean it's wise to have a gun in proximity to the president or other elected officials.

5) What's the co-op that's being talked about now, something that seems to have cropped up as a replacement for public option? If I understand it right, it will be information to compare insurance rates, giving us a chance to choose the insurance plan we want. I could put together a web site with that information for no cost at all. Looks like bait and switch to me.

6) One of the southern Republican wing nuts in the House said everyone in America has medical insurance, adding that emergency rooms are there for everyone. I won't even address how crazy she is and how much of a liar she is. What I will say is that by federal law everyone must be accepted for treatment at an ER.

What some may not know is that everyone who goes into an ER receives a bill for services provided. Insurance pays when the patient has it. When the patient does not, he can request a reduction in cost to be able to pay the bill with personal funds. Beyond that, who do you think pays the bill?

The hospital absorbs those costs, including those from illegal aliens, and then passes on those costs to those of us who do have insurance or who pay our hospital bills through other means. Nothing is really free. And once again, the liars are at work doing what they can to keep their insurance and pharmaceutical buddies retain their jobs.

Away from health insurance reform, I want to yell STOP THE BAILOUTS! If Obama and his bunch had given each man, woman and child in America the same amount from the bailouts that started with Bush last fall, each would have received several thousand dollars. How far do you think that would have gone to stimulate the economy? Very far, I think. How far have the bank, insurance and Detroit bailouts gone to stimulate the economy? Not far at all. Don't expect an insurance bailout to do any better.

Next, about all of those southerners who fight everything but corporate welfare (they call it the free market). How did you think the folks of the Confederacy would react to having a black president in D.C.? Did you think Johnny Reb would stand back and say nothing? If you did, it means you've never lived in the south or haven't read about the south. I grew up where drinking fountains and restrooms at the county fair said Whites and Colored. Blacks couldn't eat in restaurants, didn't go to school with us, didn't live in our neighborhoods, couldn't vote, and had to sit in the back of the bus. There were even towns where they had to be out by sunset. In towns and cities where they were allowed after dark, they lived in their part of town, we lived in ours, and rarely did the two meet.

Eventually, federal civil rights laws forced school districts to allow blacks into white schools, businesses started allowing black customers to buy their products, the Voting Rights Act became law, and Whites and Colored signs disappeared. But the thinking never changed. The Civil War rolls on. Those who oppose Obama based on race (and if you think there are millions who don't you're living in la-la land) are looking for anything they can to discredit him. Not to say he hasn't and isn't making mistakes. But these southerners and their sympathizers don't care what he does. To them, it's just not right that a black guy is in their White House.

Finally -- at least for my ranting today -- I want President Obama to get some cajones, at least some bigger ones. He's acting like he's afraid of somebody or some thing. It also sounds like he's too busy entertaining his Chicago friends and traveling the globe to put the efforts necessary for bringing about major change in this country. He ran on change and hope and HE WON. The Republicans were fired. If Obama wasn't going to work hard and try to take us 180 degrees away from the Bush policies, which were so destructive, then I wish he had stayed in Chicago. To say I'm disappointed is an understatement. And listen, President Obama -- I'm not alone. We liberals aren't sheep who will follow the leader no matter what he does, much like was done the past eight years. We can think.

The Charm of the Picture Book

It may be my imagination -- or my delusion -- but picture books for children (or intelligent adults) seem more often well-written, well-designed, and perfectly charming than today's fiction for grownups. I'd like to wave the flag for a few of my favorites. Head over to Border's, buy yourself a Starbuck's with a shot of vanilla, and plop yourself Indian-style on the floor in the children's book section for awhile. It's a real stress-buster.

Alternating between simple color schemes and yellow and white with black outlining, Madeline's Rescue, by Ludwig Bemelmans, creates juxtaposing moods of straight-laced order and ebullient chaos. Charming scenes of Parisian cobblestoned streets and busy markets, in which the young girls march behind their headmistress (Miss Clavel), in rank and file, contrast with much simpler ink lines in pictures depicting unrest or disorder: for example, a visually "messy" pillow fight and an anxiety-ridden Miss Clavel, who "for a second time that night turned on her light." Here the outline becomes shaky and rapid, and the black and yellow filler is applied boldly. Worth noting, too, is the use of linear perspective: greater size in the foreground receding to a single point. My own favorite scenes are the marvelous illustrations of Miss Clavel running along the hall, her body nearly parallel to the floor, and the stiff upper-lip of Lord Cucuface.

Arrow to the Sun, by Gerald McDermott, is a glorious evocation of the geometric shapes of Pueblo pottery, basketry, and weaving. The colors are southwestern: black, yellow, and shades of ocher, red, and orange, which are especially appropriate to this tale of "the Lord of the Sun." Figures and dwellings are represented with highly stylized and exotic patterns. A vivid surprise is the sudden use of fluorescent pink, blue, and green for the lord and his four chambers of ceremony and the Dance of Life. A beautiful book.

Marcia Brown, in Once a Mouse. . . , uses carved blocks of wood as stamps, dipped in auburn, red, and olive-green, and applied to the paper, sometimes superimposing one image upon another, to create vibrant scenes of jungle life. Her method gives the snakes in the grass and the twigs in the shrubs a transparency; we can see right through the snake and into the tiger's belly! Speaking of the tiger, it is a joyous rendering: The beast is given enormous personality in its frowning, grumpy face and the cat-like twist of its tail and haunches.

Lynd Ward's work in The Biggest Bear contains some of the most humorous depictions of animal naughtiness in any picture book. The famous succession of images in the middle of the story -- first, a small boy feeding an even smaller bear cub, followed by four scenes of mischief (but no bear!), and culminating in a huge fanged and clawed grizzly in the maple syrup -- is deservedly celebrated. Other classic images: the bear's grinning, not-too-bright face above those of the hogs, and the wooden rowboat holding the boy in one end and this enormous but well-behaved shaggy beast in the other, slowly sinking.

Maurice Sendak's Outside Over There is, I believe, the hugely popular illustrator's finest visual achievement, aside from his longer Nutcracker. These splendid water-and-pastel works of art resemble sixteenth century Mannerist painting (note the spectral cloak which Ida is wrapped in, like a figure in El Greco). Sendak's illustrations here are adapted in style to fit the tale, which, like Nutcracker, is filled with much of the weird, shadowy tone and style of the great German Romantic storyteller and critic, E. T. A. Hoffmann. Sendak's other idol, Mozart, is represented also; we see his bust atop the pianoforte in a little cottage on the banks of a brook. Ida's baby sister, who is being carried home from her odd adventure, gazes over her sister's shoulder at the smiling, august plaster head.