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TechnoratiSuffering and Dying for Healthcare in Las Vegas
Happy Easter everyone. Happy season of new life and blooming flowers. It’s the season of rebirth and regeneration. So, if that’s the case, then what the hell is up with letting thousands of people wait and suffer and die because we do not have the money to treat their illnesses anymore? In Las Vegas. It’s Vegas, baby. But it could be Sioux City or Boston or even Missoula. It is the reality of our national healthcare disgrace in America.
If you watched CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday, April 4, then you saw the same horrifying story I did. Budget cuts had to be made at the county hospital in the recession, the hospital CEO said. Outpatient chemotherapy clinic is closed. Letters go out to the patients. Treatment ends. People suffer with growing tumors, broken bones from metastasized cancers; people suffer to breathe. The budget is cut. It’s horrifying stuff this national disgrace. (If you didn’t see it, you can watch it here.)
Want a chocolate Easter egg? How about some jelly beans in a basket?
Meanwhile, a young mom and cancer patient in Las Vegas goes untreated… she worked and had insurance until she got too sick. Then, well, you know the drill by now. She’s dying. She’s suffering. She even had her hospital bed repossessed. She’s one of us. She is me. She is you. She is your child. And she is just one of thousands who got the letters telling them their treatments were ending. Done. No more care.
And now there is no bail-out for her or for any of us if we’re in her shoes. Where’s her bail-out? No one is even talking that way or thinking that way. Healthcare reform is on their radar, they say. We’ll get it done this year, they proudly exclaim. Meanwhile, this woman suffers. Another person dies. What is there to be proud of?
Could this Congress act now on our behalf, please? There is a war against humanity going on in these United States. My Congress and my President are to be keeping me safe and secure in my home. But so long as they know of these lethal abuses within the healthcare system, they are not honoring their commitments to me. Or to you.
This isn’t Iraq or Afghanistan. It’s Las Vegas.
We could see swift action, if we had lawmakers who saw this as an attack on our citizens. For instance, there could be a moratorium on any patient having cancer treatment discontinued due to budget cuts or insurance company bottom lines. Clean and clear. No more letters cutting off treatment. While they dance their political dances on the long-term policy, could they please act as if we’re under attack? Because we are. People are being put to death through budget cuts and profit-margins, and many are getting less care than is guaranteed a prisoner under our set of laws protecting those who are incarcerated.
Yet we sit in calm meetings in Washington, DC, -- and we argue about who sits in the White House forums and who does not -- and in other venues around the nation trying to decide if the political impact of health reform plans will harm re-election chances for our favorite elected friends or make the insurance or big corporate hospital interests upset with our lawmakers. Blah, blah, blah… while another dozen or score or more die. Cancer doesn’t wait for anyone to decide who is in and who is out.
Happy Easter. The season celebrating the risen prince of peace isn’t so damn peaceful for people on the wrong side of the recession. Especially people with cancer.
I just want that young woman and the thousands of others in her same inexcusable situation in these United States to know we’re fighting for what is just… healthcare is indeed a human right. Health insurance will not get us there – it can be lost, it can be changed, it can be inadequate, it can be denied and it can be dishonored.
But healthcare is a human right. It is not a political football. I pray we have the strength to do what is right and just, publicly funded and privately delivered healthcare – and do it now – because doing less would not be what we are all about as people. We are better than this.
During Easter and every season, we are better people than this. I know we are because we still have the ability to be horrified when a young mother in Las Vegas suffers needlessly. I hope she takes her place in heaven knowing we cared. Happy Easter, Yolanda Coleman. May God somehow make your pain a little less severe today. I am sorry you have hurt so badly during this time. You deserved better.
16 Comments so far
Show AllLots of people on the Native Reservations have been suffering, and dying, too, for a few hundered years. Started when Columbus showed up. Started when the Pilgrims landed. Start when your Nation was formed.
Here come the European's with their worldly system of doing things upon the earth.
Now more problems than you can shake a stick at only 114 years after the last of the Tribes were rounded up. See if your form of govt actually get health care through for everyone. See if they actually do any "good" for the people they rule over?
But you have your boring computers, tv's, cars, records, all the things of your manufactured reality where all reality is manufactured for you including thought so your happy, right?
Your happy with your share of the stolen Indian land pie, right?
The vested interests are too powerful in America to create a program for national healthcare. Democrats and Republicans are united on this front (for the most part) because their biggest campaign contributions come from these crooks like Kaiser and Columbia. Anyone who has travelled abroad to Europe, Australia, Canada or Japan will instantly recognize the fact that every one of their citizens has full health coverage regardless of their income.
The sign of an advanced country in my opinion is when the government spends more on healthcare than on the military. That's what I call 'real security'!
I wandered through emergency this morning on my way to the lab and noticed that the hospital charges non-Canadians $751 per visit. Just glad our health care is single payer and our social security is funded (even though it's invested in the market).
Our local hospital recently laid off some people and closed the only inpatient addiction treatment center in the area. Isn't it odd that billions are being allocated to healthcare but the people who deliver that care are being laid off, cut back and facilities closed?
Not too long ago I was listening to one of those helpful job hunting programs, CNN I think, and they said that jobs were growing in healthcare but not where you'd think. They said the jobs were in computers and administration. If you are sick, you need what the war industry calls "boots on the ground." If Obama were not the total fraud that he is, he would redirect some of the billions spent to facilitate outsourcing medical records and ramp up training nurses, but he won't even do that.
Yes, there is an over abundance of information on this topic. I still think that "SICKO" by Mike Moore is one of the best.
The problem is not a lack of information. The problem is a lack of will on the part of voters. The voters could have voted for a candidate who supports a Single Payer System. They instead voted 95% for repub/dems. Because of that 18,000 people will continue to die every year because of lack of access to health care.
Sioux Rose
ROSEMARIE: It's helfpul to remember that many people are not well-read and perhaps not particularly quick when it comes to logic. The vast majority are getting their data from a highly toxic media that obfuscates issues. There are dummies who think Obama is a socialist as they are not getting the TRUE data in the MSM that shows the many policy areas where Obama follows Bush. In short, educated to the sound byte theater that passes for TV these days, they are like Pavlov's dogs responding to signal cues like buzz words, catchy slogans, and "hip" expressions. Many have been told that sharing the medical benefits and responsibilities AS A SOCIETY = socialism, and they don't have enough of an understanding of the word to recognize how it might improve their lives.
If we had a media that really utilized the public airwaves as a SERVICE, not as a means for relaying products from the puppetmasters to the puppet show audience, then that educated public would show very different ostensible interests and concerns. We're talking MAJOR bamboozlement.
I gave up TV 2 years ago but when I go to my boyfriend's house it is ALWAYS on. He is definitely not only addicted to it, but has no idea how much its messages are defining who he is. Dating for me has always been a sociological experiment, so I observe him and see in him a perfect microcosm of America, as macrocosm. Also, as I despise commercials, if he has the controls and I don't get to mute them, I see how they PULL ME IN. It's like an addict who's again exposed to the "juice." And this is what hit me, perhaps all kinds of major subliminals are being utilized today that REALLY manipulate the public's appetites and behaviors. It was more than 10 years ago that an interest (and legal prosecution of) in subliminal advertising made the headlines. Who knows how far along such technology may have evolved? What I am saying is that it is TRULY a hypnotic media, that's not just a euphemism. And as someone said on another thread (?) during the typical one hour program, HALF the ads are for real and imagined medical maladies and their so-called cures. Big pharma appears to be designing diseases to manage. Ours is a nation that if not sick, is rapidly becoming so. And the process is being aided by those equally committed to war and disaster capitalism. Three poisons... death by fiscal disaster, by all-out violent war, or by medical tampering or withholding of medical treatment (added to the genetic manipulation of our food stuffs). And this gang calls itself pro-life and committed to "protecting" citizens. The biggest lies ever told!
souix rose, you really laid it down tonight. The problems and crisis are truly legion. Where can we start? Maybe like the Hindu's say it is truly Kaliyuga (the ironage), the lowest of the 4 revolving age's, with gold being the top, then silver, then copper, then Iron.
These ages are grand sweeps of history of hundreds of thousands of years. (It is possible that souls reincarnate from other planets as the need and timeline fit). The goldenage is the longest and most harmonious, with high degrees of knowledge and cooperation. Communication is intuitive and love and service dominate. In these pristine conditions life expectancy is unimaginably long to us who only know kali- yuga. The other ages are decreasing in length and wholeness, until we get down to kali (the ironage) which is dramatically shorter then the other purer ages. This is because if mankind remained in kaliyuga as long as the other ages he would destroy himself.
In Kaliyuga mankind has lost all refinement, with greed, hate, and war dominating (read any history book). Man has taken to eating meat and other living creatures thus breaking the sacred trust between the top rung of evolution and the preliminary supporting steps. Cannibalism is not unknown in this period and humans often appear worse then the beasts that they have evolved from. How much longer will kaliyuga last? I really don't know but serious esoteric spiritual literature thinks it still has a serious way to go as opposed to some of the new-age ideas that are floated about for 2012 being the end of kaliyuga and the current world as we know it.
As souix rose alluded to in a previous post. The law of karma dominates all the yugas and is inviable on this plane as most know it. Of course the priestcraft of all religions claim to be able to forgive sin and thus win converts and establish power and wealth but it is a complete lie. Would the world and humanity be in the horrible
condition it is in, if forgiveness could be so cavalier as to be won by a few prayers, sayings or donations? If the law of karma was obvious and instant no one would transgress. Does even a crazy man put his hand in fames? (obviously there are exceptions). No the law of karma is like a boomerang that thrown out from us may even appear to have some benefit (i.e. hitting some enemy... we are talking negative karma here) but it eventually returns to do us damage... long after we have forgotten our initial act.
Sioux Rose
RALPH: I am very gratified when others expand upon spiritual perspectives as these truly do key into the articles and issues posted on CD. Thank you for elaborating on the Hindu count of time. In many respects it runs parallel to the astrological view of the Ages of time (2200 years each). As for karma, as Christ taught, "Go and sin no more." The problem, and I think certain Italian films or those focused on organized crime nail this, is that the wealthy go into their church cubicles and say their "Confession" and believe themselves cleansed but largely repeat the ritual rather than alter their behavior! This is the problem... forgiveness implies transformation, that from the state of grace borne of forgiveness, one will not repeat their errors, especially those that do knowing harm to others.
I think 2012 is ringing bells... notice the correspondence between the "Left Behind" End Timers seeking, even courting Armageddon in the Middle East (our military likely to stir up a hornet's nest that sets the ancient fires loose) to the alarm sounded by climate scientists as to the accelerated melting of the planet's two chief ice sheets, added to the fiscal melt-down designed by Wall st's merchants of insatiable greed. Quite the trifecta. Taken together, the likelihood of the previous status quo surviving is about nill. I live far from the maddening crowd and find pleasure in small simple things. I believe each of us must HONOR and show THANKSGIVING for THIS moment and the things we tend to take for granted: like the roof over our heads, the food we eat, the air that still sustains us, the water that we require thus far is not entirely full of toxic effluents. We can write in this forum, we can take some leisure in recreation. Still...
These may be the times we remember if times get tougher to take... and all indications point to tough as like the pregnant Mother, the transition into what is next will involve major labor pains.
Yes Souix Rose, the first step in the right direction is the realization that one is going in the wrong direction. Hopefully then one stops, sits down, maybe crys a little because of the wasted effort in going in the wrong direction (actually a life process learning experience is never wasted). Then picks himself up, dusts off the dirt, and slowly starts walking in the right direction (on The Path).
It seems that at least some patients will continue to get treatment due to the philanthropy of physicians at the Women's Cancer Center of Nevada.
Where is her bailout? She worked. She paid taxes. She paid for other people, like members of congress, to have care, but she has none. But the healthcare bailout is real enough. It's just not going to her or any other citizen who needs but does not have health care. The bailout is reserved for the insurance companies - not unlike the banks. Corporate America is too well-connected to fail. The president assure us that his $650B is just a "down payment." More to follow. Whatever it takes.
For the Looting Class, Yolanda Coleman is just collateral damage. For Washington, they neither see nor hear nor care. They've got theirs. They are busy playing Great Games and prowling the corridors of power. They have completely forgotten that the wealth of this country was real, it was created by real people like Yolanda, who put up with having part of it confiscated by Washington in order to have representative government. They do not notice that not only have they stopped representing the people, but they have also squandered the wealth of what was the richest nation on earth. There will be a reckoning in Washington. Just not in time to do Yolanda Coleman any good.
Sioux Rose
DONNA: Thank you for your sustained and courageous efforts on behalf of HUMAN beings. America, in this phase of homage to mammon and Mars shows its citizens, along with the world, just where its grossly placed priorities lie.
I still can't wrap my mind around the carnage that's taken place in daylight; and by that I mean giving the bank hustlers the nation's treasure to gamble away. This complete inversion of decency and equal sell-out of the public good is why there is no money for what really counts.
Every billionaire should have a lien placed on his so-called bounty, and in sum, this money should fund hospitals in all major cities. Staffing these places should draw money from the Wall St black hole so that a few lives are sustained instead of loss thrown at loss with NOTHING substantial to show for this play of monstrous greed endowed with deadly impacts.
"The Hollow Men" have taken over this land and with their Chicago-School concepts of economics, in pursuit of riches beyond the dreams of kings, they are gutting every tenet of a sane and just society, like robbing the successive planks of a ladder.
If the ship of state goes down, those who fought on behalf of decency will at least earn karmic plusses, whereas those who stole from the "the least of these," will perhaps briefly enjoy the glitter of gold, but they also set up for themselves future lives of attrition. If the law of karma was taught, it would be doubtful that so many would go about as if they owned impunity.
60 Minutes ran a piece about this problem in Las Vegas this past Sunday as well. In the debate regarding single payer, the Swiss model is frequently mentioned. The Swiss have a hybrid public-private system with three types of coverage: Health Fund, Semi-Private, & Private (these refer to the sort of hospital room you would get should one need to go to such a facility, if you're in a Health Fund, you would stay in a communal room).
The government underwrites the Health Funds, while insurance companies sell Semi-Private and Private coverage (businesses use Semi-Private and Private insurance benefits as perks to attract talent). Thus most everyone (illegal workers excluded) in Switzerland is covered and receives a First World standard of health care.
The big shock / secret is that the tax burden for this is not the onerous expense that the propagandists of the American medical industry would have you erroneously believe, as the median tax bill of the Swiss citizen is slightly less than that of the average American. All this does is merely highlight how shameful it is that the United States still continues to be the sole industrialized nation on Earth without public health care as a right.
The people of the United States are owned and run by the capitalist corporations, lock, stock and barrel. they know this but feel helpless to change it. A president who spoke out loudly and frankly about this would galvanize the nation and force the congress to effect real change.
But don't expect this from Obama.
"But don't expect this from Obama."
________________________________
I don't. But some still do.
If Karl Marx were alive, he might write, "Obama is the hopium of the masses."
· Yr Obd't Servant
Thought you'd appreciate this Donna.
Look at how PBS edited a reporter and his conclusion out of his own documentary on healthcare.
http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/sickaroundtheworld040209.htm