Well, it passed

That major health care bill passed...

And for the life of me, I can't tell what that means.

For librals and Democrats, it means we are all going to get health insurance, we can all go to the doctor whenever we want, it'll be cheaper (Not free just yet, but soon), and by 2014 all will be fine.

For Conservatives and Republicans, we just flushed the whole mess down the tubes and not only will people suffer, but we will suffer with great sufferyness. No one will benefit, it is simply a trillion dollar boondoggle that is going to have to be paid for by Kai...

So, I really still don't know what any of this means...

So, I decided to look into it.

1) This is simply Obama trying to look good: True, we've been working on public health care since Roosevelt was president... TEDDY Roosevelt (1915, people? World War ONE?). Is that the reason he did it? Maybe, but that's not a reason NOT to do it. This argument is misinformation and trying to grasp at straws.

2) This bill does not address problems with Malpractice Insurance: Also True. The bill allots only $50 mill to this issue, and that was a compromise for the Democrats. Originally, it did not address it at all.

But, and this is the very, very important points here: You can't put an ammendment on something that doesn't exist. You need a law in place in order to add stuff to it. And, the biggest problem in our health care system today is that the insurance agencies are making a killing (literally) on us. Those Agencies don't have anything to do with malpractice insurance (Though those agencies are also making a killing... ). If you compare the number of doctors that are being taken for a ride by malpractice insurance, then compare it to the number of Americans that are being taken by insurance agencies (Indeed and the number of people who are not insured at all because of this), then it does seem disproportionate. I looked it up, and there are some 900,000 doctors in the United States (Does that seem low to you?), let's just say 1 million doctors in the US. there are 309 million people in the US. 75% are working class or middle class, so about 230 million people are being taken for a ride by insurance. This means that though it is a problem, it is 0.5% the SCALE of the bigger issue.

3) This does not address the problem with a dwindling medical work force, and Doctors will be payed less: True. It has no provision for the fact that it is more lucrative to go into private practice here in America than go into General Practice and work for the public health.

But... that's capitalism. And it's like saying "This bill does not address terrorism issues", no, it doesn't... but that's a whole different problem that needs another bill passed through congress.

3) This isn't what the people wanted: False. It's been a war of soundbites on this issue, no one wants to read the 2,000 page bill, and to be honest, I don't even think the lawmakers read the 2,000 page bill... "Death Squads" anyone? Really, I think if I actually believed that this bill meant my father would be denied coverage because he's old, I'd be against it, too... of course, that's not even in the bill... nor is there anything LIKE that in the bill...but there were people who said that was in the bill...

People wanted health care. It's started. That's the key point.

4)We are going to pay more in taxes: True, where else would you think the money comes from? In the end, however, I think we'll actually pay less. Our taxes are much more than Japan, and they have completely socialized Health Care. Our Tax boondoggle isn't health care, it's defense (That's not to say we don't NEED defense, just put the blame where it belongs).

One of the Conservitives spat out in disgust that by 2014 19 Million Americans will only get $6,000 in subsidies to help with health insurance...

Did anyone notice that our deductable was $5,000? I don't know if this fits or not, but if the government gave us $6,000 per year to subsidize that, we could wipe out our deductable and cover $2000 worth of medical bills (They pay 50% after the deductable)!... Then we could go to the doctor anytime we wanted and it would cost us $375 a month! I would happily pay that! Happily! That's all we really need to make this family healthy.

This would put an end to people like my mother dying because she couldn't afford to go to the doctor. This would put an end to "We can't afford to be sick" (A mantra I grew up with)...

The last big thing I heard was that before (Since Teddy Roosevelt) Health Care had a far greater approval rating than it did this time , Thus, it stands to reason that we aren't doing the right thing:... well, I'll pose this as well: Maybe the reason was because it never went this far... It got killed early every other time because of politics looong before anyone could vote on it.

Here's what I do know: it will cost America's corporations, they will have to cover their employees or pay a VERY stiff fine.

So... whose interests are we REALLY worried about?

Perfect? If America EVER makes perfect legislation, then someone has drugged the Congress and House... we aren't designed to make perfect legislation.

Are you listening Mr. Obama?

So, here's the deal;

I pay $370 a month for my health insurance.

It has a $5,000 deductable, meaning they won't even touch a medical issue until we reach $5,000 out of our pocket FIRST.

Then it's 50% after that... so from $5,001 to, say $10,000 I still have to pay $2,500

For our hospital visit, where my son was born, we just got a bill for $2,045... my insurance -To whom I have paid $4,000 so far (And continue to pay $370 a month)-, paid $900 of the $3,000 bill. Not even half of what I have paid in... and it doesn't cover the new pediatrician visits (Since that is a seperate thing)... so we start all over again chipping away at that massive deductible. With a deductible that high, it is likely that a healthy person will NEVER get help from Insurance... all of our trips will have to be out of pocket... which means I will never go to see the doctor until I am REALLY, REALLY sick (Because my son and wife will go before I ever do and we simply do not make enough for all three of us to go). Probably, like my mother, the next time I see a medical professional it will be a coroner.

Now I'm hearing that this new health care will require me to have health care... that's fine, but it better not be like my current plan... Which, I might add, is the BEST I could get (My company is simply too small to have it's own insurance-this is with a seperate company)... If it is, then I will no longer support you. Forcing people to pay for a screwed up system isn't helping, it hurts.

When we talk about Auto Insurance -which we have lost all respect for because there is rarely help from the companies when you need them- we often say that Auto insurance is simply "paying for permission to drive".

Please, PLEASE, don't make this Health Care bill be nothing more than paying for permission to live.

---Me

Who the Health Cares?

So, before we left Japan we purchased health insurance-knowing that we were going to try to have a baby (our company is small enough that it doesn't really have health insurance just yet).

The stipulation, of course, is that in order to have the insurance cover the baby, we must have had the insurance for a month before we conceive.

We did that, paying our first payment in March, we didn't conceive until May.

Now we are in the doctors office for our first visit. It turns out that the insurance has a $5000 deductable and it only pays 50% after that...

Having a baby (Provided everything is normal) in this area, costs about $10,000.

So, by the time we have our baby, we will have had our insurance -which we pay $315 a month- for 11 months, totalling $3,465. They will pay $2,500 to help us through our delivery.

Hmm...

One could argue that I'm paying that extra $900 for protection against something going wrong, but this also presumes that the insurance company doesn't decide that Post Natal is a seperate charge and thus we are back to the beginning with the initial $5000 deductable...

At this point, I'll take Canadian, British or Japanese health care... It costs me money to have insurance... Insurance is making the situation (Which is already incredibly expensive) MORE expensive...

---Poor Dad

Wow....

Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion

Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion

Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion

S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion

Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion

The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)

Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion

Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion

NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion
TOTAL: $3,920,000,000,0002008



BAILOUT TOTAL AS OF NOV 2008: $4,616,000,000,000



Now, it should be noted that this is sort of apples and oranges, the bailout is a loan, not an expenditure and we expect to get some of this money back... but that will be in the future (Sometime... not this year) and the government didn't print that money to be given away, it is borrowed against our assets.



I'm not saying anything for or against the bailout (Honestly, I'm underinformed on it, so I can't, in good conscience, say anything for or against...)... This is simply something I saw and thought it was interesting. :)



---Fascinated...

Okay, last political message...

I am a patriot.

When my government says: "Honest, we had a reason to invade another country... and it wasn't oil! And no, we won't show you what that reason was, it's Top Secret! Stop saying it was Oil! Yes, we are making money off of Iraqi oil, but that wasn't the reason!

"I know we have made a lot of other blunders and have been caught lying in the past to you, in this case -honest- we didn't lie." That makes me stop and worry.

When they add; "Believe us or you are not a patriot!" I get scared.

And, really, you should, too.

And the response?

"This is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting and never use the word 'victory' except when he's talking about his own campaign,"
"It's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform, not even in the state Senate,"
"What exactly is our opponent's plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet? The answer is to make the government bigger and take more of your money."

From Sarah Paulin...

I guess... well... I guess we can't be adults about this, can we?

Obama has shown himself willing to attack the issues, not his opponent... McCain and Paulin open fire with what's wrong with Obama... It's kinda like the "And your mother is ugly, too!" thing... it's lowbrow fighting. Recently that has become the norm...

It takes so much less intelligence to say "Be scared of my opponent!" than it is to say "I have a plan!"... It's safer, it also hides your not having a plan if you don't have one...

Well... I'm not sitting on the fence any more, I guess...

"Let me be as clear as possible," Barak Obama said. "I think people's families are off-limits, and people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as governor or her potential performance as a vice president."

Okay, so, no matter who you are voting for, this was a good thing to say.

Bravo, Mr. Obama. I may not vote for you (That's not decided yet), but whether I do or don't, I'm very impressed with your words.

Oh...God...

Okay... I am becoming rather concerned about this;

A week or so ago I received this chain mail from my Aunt (Whom I love dearly... This needs to be said because I think I reacted rather strongly in my reply and I don't want her to think I hate her in any way...)

Anyway, here we go:

U. S. "no longer a Christian Nation"

Please send this on to your friends, spend time each day in prayer for our country, and get out and vote in November.

Dear Friends,

As I was listening to a news program last night, I watched in horror as Barack Obama made the statement with pride. . ."we are no longer a Christian nation; we are now a nation of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, . . . As with so many other statements I've heard him (and his wife) make, I never thought I'd see the day that I'd hear something like that from a presidential candidate in this nation. To think our forefathers fought and died for the right for our nation to be a Christian nation--and to have this man say with pride that we are no longer that. How far this nation has come from what our founding fathers intended it to be.

I hope that each of you will do what I'm doing now--send your concerns, written simply and sincerely, to the Christians on your email list. With God's help, and He is still in control of this nation and all else, we can show this man and the world in November that we are, indeed, still a Christian nation!

Please pray for our nation!

-----

First of all, (And I'm not reaching into that "old tired bag") The First Ammendment protects freedom of religion for a reason. Britian wanted everyone to be one religion, everyone paid taxes to the church and the church had POWER. A lot of power.

Anyway, Thomas Jefferson was a Deist, George Washington excised religion from the government. We aren't a Christian nation. In fact, 25% of us are Non-Christian. And that number increases every year. We should never be thought of as Christian. It's not fair to the non-Christian community.

Now, according to CNN there will be Muslim ads running on busses. This is cool. But... um... hey there are protests? Why? Jesus Saves? Why can't we hear a little about what Mohammed did?

I know, the claim is that the man behind it is a terror suspect... but good gracious, guys EVERYONE is a terror suspect these days! You guys are searching and detaining your own government officials at the airport and strip searching them. You don't know who is a terror suspect anymore. Heck, in writing this blog, I'll become a terror suspect (When I won't even kill a fly in my apartment... but, heck, I have nothing better to do than be interrogated after a 15 hour flight... come to think of it, that's got to be much more effective than Chinese Water Torture...).

Naw, this is more "If you aren't Christian, you are bad." Beeswax.

By the way, Nation of Islam, you're not doing much better, here. I encourage learning about all religions... but simply having the word "Infadel" means there is something majorly wrong with your dietical logic.

Consider: You have two sons. You leave cryptic post-it notes on the fridge about what the boys should do. Sometimes you leave the post-its in their rooms, disguising your handwriting so it isn't clear who wrote it. Then you stand back and watch as they knife each other to death?

That's not my idea of God. And it shouldn't be the world's view, either. I'm not sure why it seems to be.

Anyway, again; get your facts straight guys, stop painting the other guy as bad because even though he's a pretty hard-core Christian he is not Christian enough because he doesn't hate Muslims.

Yes, we are a nation of Christians and Muslims and Jews and Wicca and Athiests and Agnostics and Native Americans and all kinds of varied and differing opinions.

And, trust me, unless you guys really want a Holy War the likes of which you can never imagine, then you probably want it to stay that way.

God's Children knifing it out over whom Dad likes best...

Einstein said; "I don't know what World War III will be fought with, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

The world is a religious powderkeg, guys... It's dangerous mixing politics and religion...

A plea for the coming election

I really don't care who you vote for, but please PLEASE... research for yourself the candidates... don't listen to what CNN or Fox or Jon Stewart or Rush Limbagh have to say about the candidates... it's party politics and that can't be trusted...

Case in point:

Me: Dad, if you don't like McCain, why not vote for Obama.

Dad: I won't vote for Obama, he has no experience.

Hillary said the same thing... Ah... he heard this from Hillary...

Dad, please read this message:

Barak Obama: Member of the Illinois State Senate from the 13th distrct: January 8, 1997 – November 4, 2004, Junior Senator From Illinois, Assumed office January 4, 2005

Total time holding office: 11 years (January 1997 to present)

John Fitzgerald Kennedy: United States Senator from Massachusetts In office January 3, 1953 – December 22, 1960 Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts's 11th district In office January 3, 1947 – January 3, 1953

Total time holding office: 13 Years (January 1947-December 1960)

Abraham Lincoln: Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 7th district In office March 4, 1847 – March 3, 1849

Time in office: 2 years (1847-1849) Note; this is half the time Obama has spent in almost the same exact position

George Washington: ------

Time in office: 0 years...

I don't mind the mud, I don't mind the slinging... I only mind it when intellegent people only listen to the mud...

Folks, vote for who you like... it's your choice... but, for our country's sake, vote smart! Question everything!

I don't know where I'm going yet. I may not decide until the last minute... but I will research everything before I cast my vote. I encourage you to as well.

Free who?

Okay, I need some help on this one...

Why is Tibet special?

Yes, I get that Tibet was invaded in 1950-something and has become part of China by complete force. That sucks, but many places have been invaded since time immemorial and... honestly... we just have to get over it... We can't really return all the lands to their rightful owners, there's simply too many people (Can you image 5 billion people trying to squeeze into Europe? Meanwhile in No-man's-land USA, 50,000 people live... one person for every 100 square miles...)

I get that China is abusing human rights. They need to stop. I have no question about that. That's part of the International Community's domain. And we are working on it (Slowly... China is a rather large monster to be fighting, but we have been and continue to make progress).

Why Tibet? Why disrupt the Olympics? The only time that the world (Or at least the ones who are willing to play nicely) get together in peace? The only world activity that really doesn't involve guns and tanks (biathalon (or is it Triathalon?) notwithstnading :D)

I'm not trying to be argumentative, I'm angry to see that the Olympic torch, a symbol of peace, getting snuffed out because of one little country which has (rightfully) been wronged.

Is this what our future is all about? Snuffing out peace until everyone is happy? This could be a loooooonnnnng time, then.

The thing that makes me so mad is that people seem to be resigned to the concept that we will always kill each other off, and that we might as well all take a collective sigh and grab a gun and shoot someone, because it's just inevitable...

The world isn't perfect. We all know that. As we grow things will become even more testy, should we really just cancel the Olympics and go back to killing each other like civilized people?

Anyway, I digress... someone tell me what makes Tibet so special as to disrupt peace?

And the terror spreads.

So the terrorists have claimed yet another victim; Japan.

Starting on November 20, Japan will institute a new procedure whereby they fingerprint and photograph every foreigner who enters Japan.

Any foreigner... even those of us that live here and are returning. when Maia goes home to visit, she will have to wait in long, unhappy lines of foreigners when she returns to Narita who must all be herded into a room, fingerprinted, photographed and released after a computer check in immigration.

The truth is; of course, we aren't the problem... it's the terrorists whom they can't catch with fingerprints and photographs that are the issue... because the only terrorist attacks Japan has ever had were Japanese... And they aren't fingerprinting and photographing the Japanese... That would cause a riot here... The Japanese see fingerprinting as something one only does to criminals...

Which, I guess, would be us... the foreigners... Gads, no one thought about how we, residents here, would feel about that... especially if we were sensitive enough to this culture that we actually agree with that sentiment (fingerprinting=criminal)...

I left America, where I was Guilty until proven Innocent, and came to Japan, where I was Innocent until proven Guilty... but now, due to Mister Osama, I have found myself, once again, Guilty...

See, really what has occured is that the US, freaking out about 9/11, has given Japan permission to give in to their xenophobia and let their inner fear out... all in the name of Anti-Terrorism. Al Queda isn't going to get caught by a fingerprint and photograph scan... That's the saddest part; If they ever target Japan, it'll happen, and then Japan'll realize they had the terrorists' fingerprints and photographs all along, sitting in a database somewhere... but that didn't stop them... Then they'll decide that they need to move to the next step... whatever that would be (Having not had an opportunity to proove my innocence to anyone yet... I'm hoping I'm not here to be among the Guilty). So now terrorism is a great excuse to do anything to anyone... Well damn, people! Whose next? Will Iran claim that destorying Israel is a valid operation because it is stopping terrorism? Horrifyingly enough; that thought process would make more sense than attacking Iraq to stop the terrorists in Saudi Arabia... From Iran's point of view, Israel really is a terrorist nation... They'd have proof that could even stand up in court. Better proof than the U.S. did.

We have all, as a civilized world, taken one step backward. We let the terrorists win, and we are all too blinded by fear to see it.

---Disappointed

Drums

So I read a news report today that indicated that Japan was going to transferr 20 F-15 Eagles from Tokyo to Okinawa in 2009 to replace the aging F-4's stationed there (Which are almost at the end of their 20 year service life anyway) because China continues to threaten Japanese Airspace in the south.

This report hits me in three ways...

first of all... this is frightning... With F-15's stationed in Okinawa (Mind you there is a major American Air base there, with all mannor of nastiness, including 50 American F-15's), this means Japan is prepared to go head-to-head with China if something happens... to which I have a mixed reaction; on the one hand, good on ya for taking your own matters into your own hands... on the other hand... China... I think China would give the US a headache... the Japanese Self-Defense Force would be a speed bump... slowing the Chinese down just long enough for the US to get their birds in the air... Of course... I shouldn't count out Japanese F-15's... they are probably at least as good as the US 15's stationed in Okinawa... Either way, this is ugly...

Then I took issue with the planes they are replacing... F-4s? F-4... Phantoms? Airplanes designed to prove that given enough engine even a brick can fly? Airplanes designed in 1961?!? These planes were the heart of Viet Nam... What in Buddha's name is Japan even doing with F-4's? This is a first world country... heck, even Afghanistan is flying 1980's era aircraft...

Then... at the end of their 20-year service life... what?!? That means somebody (I'd like to think Grumman has better things to do than this) in America is still making these monstrosities... Or at least was in 1989... what in the world? We have retired two generations of aircraft since the F-4 flew in combat...

Don't get me wrong, F-4's were a work horse of Nam... but I mean, really... It's like using WWII era B-17's to defend West Virginia... It's really kinda odd...

Okay, politics and aircraft tirade over :D

--Me.