Picked this book up because I wanted to learn for myself the truth about the U.S.’s healthcare system in comparison to other countries’. I think it’s the American thing to do to strongly defend everything that makes us uniquely American, but on this one thing, we must learn to humbly admit that our healthcare system sucks. The one thing that differentiates us from every other healthcare system is that we have decided to commoditize healthcare. It is a good/service that can be bought. The wealthy can get the best kind of healthcare while the poor are simply too poor to buy it. Professor William Hsiao, a Harvard Health Economist, who has helped shape many a country’s health care system from scratch (for example Taiwan’s) says this about a country’s stance on their health care system.
“Before you can set up a health care system for any country, you have to know that country’s basic ethical values. The first question is: Do people in your country have a right to health care? If the people believe that medical care is a basic right, you design a system that means anybody who is sick can see a doctor. If a society considers medical care to be an economic commodity, then you set up a system that distributes health care based on the ability to pay. And then the poor, pretty much, are left out.”
However, many argue that it is our capitalist health care system that makes our health care system the most innovative with the most number of specialists and top-notch medical centers. That may be true, but these accolades look pathetic and ironic next to the following statistics.
“Basically, you die earlier and spend more time disabled if you’re an American rather than a member of most other advanced countries.” - Christopher Murray, Dr & Health Economist Harvard
One of the most interesting insights Reid had was that Americans aren’t cold, heartless people who believe that only the rich should get health insurance. It’s that most people don’t realize the sheer number of people who are uninsured or under-insured. We also believe that holding onto this idea of “capitalism” is more important than the overall health of our country. If you want to talk about socialized healthcare, then not covering a low-income family, and making the city cover their emergency room costs if an emergency occurs is actually more socialized than the healthcare systems in so-called socialist Germany, France, UK, Singapore, and Taiwan.
Obamacare was a great first step to getting more people insured. It made it illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions. It increased the net for Medicaid. It requires those in finance to contribute to Medicaid/Medicare (yes, those hedge fund managers and traders weren’t paying before). It requires small businesses (49 employees or more) to provide health insurance (along with a tax credit of course). A lot more, but you should read it for yourself!
Anyways, this was a great read. I would definitely recommend it to everyone who wants to learn more about the topic.
I finally finished reading The Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy. Granted there were very many details that I skimmed over - the entire series were great. JRR Tolkien was and is a great author who has created a new world unparalleled except I guess by our real world. The funny thing about reading the books was that my mind was completely free and open to the Hobbit because I hadn’t seen the movie while my mind was wholly tainted by the movies which I think made the LOTR books less interesting. There are a lot of differences between the movie and the book, obviously. Keep in mind that I am a LOTR noob and that, honestly, my opinions don’t matter that much and so if you’re offended by them, get over it.
My opinion on the differences:
Overall though, I’m glad that I read this epic story. Epic isn’t really a good word because this kind of imagination is truly genius and once in a lifetime.. I guess I should quote Gandalf in his description of hobbits in relation to books,
“Hobbits (BOOKS) really are amazing creatures. You can learn all there is to know about their ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years they can still surprise you.
I think that the Hobbit and The LOTR books have a lot to offer and I appreciate it for its wealth of creativity. However, I dont think that I’ll be drawing maps or cosplaying anytime soon.
Dead Gallop by Pablo Neruda
There is one line that I repeat inside my mouth, “From where, to where, on what shore?”
It’s not just that it is so catchy. “From where, to where, on what shore?”
It’s inviting. It’s also frustrated - an exasperated sigh.
The famous, immortalized Pablo Neruda. I hadn’t heard of him until a good friend of mine gave me a book of essentials my senior year of high school. He is the mortal writing Aphrodite. He is quoted in movies and was on the lips of people like Che Guevara. He is a lover, but more than that, he was a lover of love.
It’s a question that we all have to deal with. What is love? Whether it pertains to our parents, to our friends, or to strangers whose eyes we believe in.
“From where, to where, on what shore?”
We start forming ideas of love and sometimes we believe that we completely understand what it entails, but more often than not, we’re completely wrong. Like a handful of accumulated sand, it seeps and escapes through our fingers. There are too many permutations, too many gears and wires, and all we can marvel at, gape at what it is.
I don’t confess to understanding it, this love. But Pablo Neruda ends this poem by invoking the “great pumpkins” in the summer. It knows that harvest will come and go - that summer will end, but until then it will stretch out their leaves and drink heavily of the rain that comes today.
Dead Gallop
By Pablo Neruda
Like ashes, like oceans gathering themselves,
in the submerged slowness, in what’s unformed,
or like hearing from a high place on the road
the cross-echo of church bells,
holding that sound just off the metal,
confused weighing down, turning to dust,
in the same mill of forms, too far away,
remembered or never seen,
and the fragrance of plums rolling to the ground,
which rote in time infinitely green.
That everything, so quick, so lively,
immobile, though, like the pulley, wild inside itself,
those wheels in motors, you know.
Existing like the dry stitches in the seams of the tree,
silent encircling, like that,
all the limbs mixing up their tails.
I mean, from where, to where, on what shore?
The constant swirl, uncertain, so mute,
like the lilacs around the convent,
or death’s arrival on the ox’s tongue,
who falls in jerks, his guard down, his horns trying to
sound.
That’s why, in what’s immobile, stopping oneself, to
perceive,
then, like an immense fluttering of wings, above,
like dead bees or numbers,
ay, that which my pale heart can’t embrace,
in multitudes, in tears scarcely shed,
and human exertions, storms,
black actions suddenly discovered,
like ice, vast disorder,
oceanic, for me who enters singing,
like a sword among the defenseless.
Now then, what is it made of, that surge of doves
there between night and time, like a humid ravine?
That sound, already so long,
which falls striping the roads with stongs,
or better yet, when just one hour
expands without warning, extending endlessly.
Within the ring of summer
the great pumpkins listen once,
stretching out their poignant plants,
of that, of what’s asking so much,
full, dark with heavy drops.
A third of us can’t be bothered to use the votes Libyans are dying for.
From IntelLife
There are many people who look as photography as a means of artistic expression. I would agree. Then there are those who use photographs to portray something that cannot be read or heard. It has to be captured.
This past weekend, a movie about the Bang Bang Club just came out. It’s supposed to portray the lives of four photo-journalists who have risked their lives to show you and me what war is. Check out the trailer - their lives were (two of them died, one of them lost both of his legs) extraordinary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOGCwHsKPm4
I’ve been contemplating how superficial, and how thin my worries are - how lowly my dreams are in comparison to what the world needs.
Last year, Bank of America, Chevron, and Massey Energy managed to pay 0% taxes. This year, Congress proposes $38billion in budget cuts. If these multi-billion dollar corporations had paid their taxes, we would have an extra $68billion. Let’s not kid ourselves and think that letting them “save” the 35% created more jobs or boosted the economy - because it didn’t. While the the American public fronted the costs for their oil spills, their air pollution, and their investment failures, these companies are flying around in their private jets guffawing at our utter inability to grasp the gravity of the situation.
oh and btw did you know that our public debt is roughly 50% of our gdp?
Budget Planner Software - Mint.com
“Don’t ever discount the wonder of your tears. They can be healing waters and a stream of joy. Sometimes they are the best words the heart can speak.” William P. Young
A lot of people know that I am a cry baby; in fact, I admit that I wear my heart on my sleeve. However, I concur with Mr. William P. Young when he says that tears can be wonderful. Although they can represent the anguish and the pieces of a hundred cuts and lashes to the heart, they come bearing ointments and salves.
Today, I literally “stumbledupon” this website that claimed to have 101 short stories that will leave me “smiling, crying, and laughing” and cry baby cynic that I am gave the first dozen stories a half-hearted glance while simultaneously watching “Lipstick Jungle”. However, as I focused and read, it made me think.
As a Duke student, the definition of success and I can sometimes have a monogamous relationship. There is a picture in my mind - me getting a phone call securing that lucrative internship position for this summer that will lead me to my future. How incredibly puerile.
There must be more than this, correct? However, we need reminders that even though our houses, cars, watches, and gadgets are made of sticks and stones, our lives are built and kept by the people around us. Those people we hate and despise, those people who pull us by the hair to our wits end, those people that tick - they’re human.
I’ve been thinking a lot about legacy - what am I going to leave behind? No matter how many people are trying to save the world, there seems to be too much world to be saved. Furthermore, doesn’t it seem like everyone wants to save the world now? It’s become “hip” right?
Even though I desperately want to make everything about me, it’s not. There are greater pictures to be seen and greater things to do.
inspiration! plus - i didn’t know that food could stay in your digestive track like that.