Health care reform. . .

My mom, AKA Grumpy Granny, posted a blog about her concerns about the health care reform. She asked me to comment, and because of its size, I opted to make my comment a separate blog post. Here goes!

One of the problems with this bill is that it took them a year to pass it, and it wasn't because they were trying to work out the kinks, it was because they were too busy playing their partisan games. But it's like Jules said, bipartisanship was a foregone conclusion irregardless.

The CBO has said this is actually going to reduce the deficit. That's good, I'm all for defecit reduction, but I don't like the way they're doing it. For starters, they're cutting funding to Medicare. They have millions of people who depend on Medicare, and millions more that will depend on it soon, and they're going to cut funding. I would have rather they kept the funding as-is, or maybe even increased it. A lot of people on Medicare are on fixed incomes, and can't afford regular insurance--pre-existing condition or not--on their income, so in my opinion, reducing the Medicare funding is only going to hurt them more than it's going to help, at least in the short term. I admit that I'm actually kinda in favor of taxpayer subsidy of health insurance for those who can't afford it, if anything because, being on VA benefits, the taxpayers subsidize my healthcare, so who am I to complain, right?, but it's also because at least I know my tax dollars are going for something good and not, say, research on the behavior of moose sperm that's frozen and thawed out. . .but the Medicare cuts take effect before the government subsidies do. What are they going to do in the interim?

I also have a problem with the individual mandate. They're going to force everyone to have a minimum level of coverage. Now, again, that's where the government subsidies come in, and I know that there's exceptions for people who, even with subsidies, still can't afford it, and I also know that my VA healthcare automatically satisfies the minimum coverage requirement, but I oppose it on principle--who is the government to tell me or the people I know that they MUST do something, or face a fine? And the fine's not going to cap at $750. No, the cap in the penalty for not having health insurance is $750 multiplied by the cost of living increase from Calendar Year 1992--which was 3.7%, if I remember right, meaning the actual cap is more like $2,775.

And there's the matter of requiring employers with more than 50 employees to provide health insurance, or face a penalty. In the present economic environment a lot of those busimesses are doing good to meet payroll; throwing this on them may well spell bankruptcy. And I don't remember seeing anything in the bill about government helping to fund employer-sponsored coverage, although I could be wrong on that. I did try to read the bill, but at a couple thousand pages of congressional gibberish it's hard. . .

Of course, the individual mandate and employer mandate don't kick in until 2014. Who's to say the ecomony's going to improve by then? I sure as hell hope it has but with everything that's gone on economically it's a very real possibility that it could be 2014 or beyond before we fully recover. I'm not trying to sound pessimistic, I'm honestly just trying to look at reality.

That's the other thing--why do most of the changes have to take effect in 2014? Who not 2010, or 2011? They're waiting too long to put everything in effect. Yeah, okay, the budgets for 2011-2013 are already in the works. . .MODIFY THEM! I'm pretty sure there's a way to modify budget forecasts like that so that the stuff can take effect at least in 2011.

Now, I did my research on single-payer health care, specifically the Kucinich bill that's been introduced every Congress since I believe 2004. It would basically amount to a government takeover of health care for essential services by expanding Medicare to cover everyone, and relegate private insurance to non-essentials. Health care providers would be required to be public, not for profit, in order to participate. In the bill for-profit institutions that converted would remain privately owned, which I suppose is a good thing. Now, having been under government-run healthcare for a good chunk of my life--TRICARE and VA--I can tell you that there will be problems.

When I first joined the Navy, if you weren't feeling too hot, you went to the clinic at 8:00am for sick call. The doctor saw you, made his diagnosis, and proceeded accordingly. The sick call system had been in place for literally hundreds of years; then, in '04 they did away with sick call. Now you had to make an appointment, and generally you didn't get a same day appointment. A buddy of mine was having a persistant headache. He made an appointment, but it was for a few days, maybe a week later. Well, several days later he got fed up and had someone drive him to a civilian hospital, where they ran the requisite tests and determined he was having a minor stroke. Lord knows what would have happened if he's waited for that appointment. And more recently, after an ECG found that I had some probable heart problems, I called to make an appointment. The soonest they had was nearly a month away--that was Feb. 28 and my appointment's tomorrow. Those are under government-run programs. Now, the TRICARE and the VA provides more comprehensive care than single-payer would, but, under the Kucinich bill, VA healthcare could be eliminated in favor of the government option. Indian Health Service would be eliminated, but TRICARE would remain untouched. I could see the Department of Health and Human Services turning the VA hospitals into national hospitals, but that could be somewhat far-fetched. But about the only way I could support single-payer, even a little, is if they left VA and IHS alone.

Oh, and another thing--the health care reform recently passed would expand the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps--doctors and nurses who, while not part of the military, are payed on the DOD payscale, wear Navy-style uniforms, and hold rank, just like the Navy, ensign to vice admiral--to create a reserve component and establish PHS Warrant Officers. What does expanding the size of the PHS Commissioned Corps have to do with health care reform? Sounds to me like a park-barrell project, but it may just be me.

Well, Mom, here's your comment! Sorry it's so long/

Canals, cemetaries, and convention centers, or: planes, trains, and automobiles. . .

AHA! The city of Jeffersonville has said that they can't really proceed with the canal project until they figure out if there really is, in fact, a Civil War-era cenetary underneath Colston Park, which is more or less in the path of the canal. I quoth from the Evening News (credit to David A. Mann):

"(Construction Solutions, LLC vice president Peggy)Duffy said the project could not proceed until the question of whether there is a Civil War-era cemetery beneath Colston Park, on Mulberry Street, is answered."

Well, let's see. . .on Mulberry Street, just south of Chestnut, next to the alley that goes to Colston Park, is a stone marker and a flagpole that tells the brief story of what was then Playsquare Park. It was established in the 1920's because the City Council at the time thought it would be better to hear the sounds of kids playing there than the sounds of soldiers at rest. (Not an exact quote). The last headstone was moved to Walnut Ridge Cemetary on Hamburg Pike. Back in the mid 1990's the park was renamed in honor of Raymond Colston, who was a past parks commissioner (truth be told I think he was the city's first.)

The park, and the adjacent baseball diamond, is located behind the old Rose Hill Elementary School. THat entire area is being eyeballed by the city as the site of a convention center. The convention center idea has been around a few months longer than the canal idea, and both have essentially been merged into one huge project. As I understand the project--the city's PowerPoint won't be up for a few more days--the canal would run along Mulberry on the east side of the convention center.

Anyways, back to what I was saying-->Ms. Duffy went on to say that if there WAS, in fact, a cemetary, their options would be 1)moving the cemetary; 2)moving the project away from the cemetary; or 3)incorporating the cemetary into the project itself. Now if Option 1 were chosen I would never recognize the city's existance ever again. I would stop reading the Evening News. I would drive the extra distance and go to work via New Albany instead of driving I-65 through Jeffersonville. I would petition Mapquest to remove it from their maps. If I ever needed to go to the hospital I would have the ambulance take me to Floyd Memorial--and I LOATHE FMH. Hell, I despise New Albany, but if they chose Option 1 I would embrace that miserable place.

I would certainly prefer Option 2. Heck, I'd prefer they not build a canal, but what do I know, right?

Now I have an idea about Option 3. Presently Jeffersonville has no veteran's memorial save the marker the Daughters of the American Revolution put in Warder Park eons ago. If they must insist on putting in the canal, why not turn Colston Park into a veteran's memorial park? (Uh-oh, that's not a bad idea!) In fact, I've had that idea for a few years now, and even have an idea of what the centerpiece memorial could look like. Maybe I ought to e-mail Mike Smith. . .

We'll see what happens. I hope this derails their whole operation, but if it doesn't and they decide to work this into the plan, they ought to call me. . .

Goliath's Jager

Looking For A Book, or: Parking In Louisville Sucks

So I went to Waldenbooks earlier looking for a book--King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard. They didn't have it--it's the Green Tree Mall store, what DO they have--so I decide to go hit the Borders at 4th Street Live. I get across the bridge, head down to Muhammad Ali Boulevard, over to 5th Street, and up to Liberty. OK, cool, there's on street parking.

NOT.

Well, not after 4pm anyways, although I am convinced it wasn't 4pm yet. Either way, some guy from the parking authority (better known as the Louisville Metro Revenue Generation Authority) tells me I can't park on the street after 4pm--AFTER I put my quarter in the meter. Dude, thanks for wasting my time, and my quarter, and by the way, what do you plan on doing with the three--no, four cars parked on the street in front of me? Even though I KNOW it wasn't 4pm yet, I decide not to argue with him, if only because Metro Police has a station right around the corner on 3rd Street, and I don't think jail is a good use of time, so I drive right back around the corner and head into the 5th Street Garage.

I give the much friendlier garage attendent $3 and proceed to drive around the garage, looking for a space that is big enough to fit a small '97 Saturn. The only space I saw wasn't even big enough to fit a tricycle. So I'm on my way out of the garage, now cursing the no-longer friendly attendent, and I found it--a space reserved for small cars like mine, right by the stairs. Could it get any better? (Yeah--dude could've told me about on-street parking before I wasted a quarter.) So I hop down the stairs, chat with the security guard for a second, and head over to Borders.

Well, guess what? They didn't have King Solomon's Mines, either! I decided to make the trip, and the headache the parking authority caused me, worth my time and gas and bought Glenn Beck's Common Sense and a book on the battle of Fallujah. Somewhat satisfied--I've been meaning to get that Beck book, I already have An Inconvenient Book and Arguing With Idiots (both purchases got me lectured by the cashier on how Glenn Beck is what's wrong with society)--I leave the store and see the parking authority guy issuing parking tickets to those three--no, four cars that were in front of me on Liberty Street. I officially retract anything bad I said about him and go back to my car.

I get home, where I can park on the street 24-7 for free, and get on the Borders website. Turns out, no Borders within 100 miles of here has King Solomon's Mines in stock. Even better is, the next book in that series, Allan Quatermain, is getting re-issued April 1. . .but the current copies, like Mines, aren't in any store within 100 miles of here. But not all is lost--I can just order both books in a couple weeks and pick them up at the store. So I suppose maybe it'll be worth the trouble after all. . .

The moral of this story? Don't try to park in Louisville, EVER.