When i was a kid, i seem to remember the news being rather unbiased, leaning only slightly to the left. In high school and beyond, this changed however, as the mainstream media started leaning farther and farther left and became more and more vocal about it. Then came FoxNews, which i constantly here degraded as a so-called conservative source. On campus, it's a running joke. i don't have cable, but i listen to KNZZ almost every day, and they use FoxNews every hour, and from personal observation i have to strongly object. FoxNews on the radio is not conservative, it is the new mainstream media, the same as mainstream media was in my childhood: they are slightly biased and leaning left. They allow Obama statements and viewpoints to run that are clearly not factual and propagandist in nature. Sure, Glenn and Sean are covering things that no one else on TV will, but their standard news service is too left for me. Being an unbiased reporter is dead, that's a big part of why i decided not to continue with my Mass Communications major, because no matter how much they touted the fact that they were teaching us to be unbiased, their everyday conversations and lectures are very, very biased. I have to wonder what FoxNews will be like in ten, fifteen years. Will they be as openly liberal as the major networks are now?
What sparked off this little tirade? Well it's their coverage of Senator Lieberman, who fortunately is taking a stand against healthcare reform. At the top of the article in an unattractive photo of him, which is unprofessional of them and indicates bias against him (you don't think the mainstream media would run an image making Obama look bad, do you?). i remember a day when i said that i would have voted for Lieberman before voting for McCain, but barring moving to Conn. i doubt that i'll ever get that chance. i greatly regret voting for McCain: i was really voting for Palin and against Obama. i wanted to write in Paul, but now he has betrayed our cause by taking bail out funds. i refuse to buy a product funded by that money.
Anyways, kudos to you, Senator Lieberman, continue to stand up for what you believe in, you're in my prayers.
ETA: More kudos for Senator Lieberman
Monday, November 09, 2009
more on lupus and why Nikki's condition doesn't endorse reform
Quality of life and life expectancy for lupus patients varies greatly, based on the severity of the illness and how long the disease is present before diagnosis and treatment begins. The extent to which the disease has progressed at the onset of treatment greatly impacts the life expectancy for lupus patients. When caught early, lupus can be treated and brought largely into remission before the occurrence of serious organ damage. However, left untreated over a period of time, lupus can lead to serious problems with vital internal organs, including the brain, heart, lungs, and kidneys. Such damage can severely compromise the life expectancy for lupus patients.The Lupus4You webpage makes it sound as if Nikki was receiving the proper medical attention when she was diagnosed at the age of 21 then she should have never had to leave her job in the first place and never gotten sick. Lupus sounds like it's easy to live with, very manageable, like one of those "extinct" diseases. The drug that is commonly used to treat the disease, Prednisone, appears to be easy to obtain online for as little as $40 for 180 pills of a "standard dose" ($177 at the Canadian website i saw).
~ from Lupus4You.com
There must be a missing piece of the puzzle in this story. Was Nikki allergic to the drugs? Undiagnosed (if so, why would healthcare companies refuse to cover her)? In fact, why would they refuse to cover her at all when this preexisting condition seems to be very easy and cheap to treat??? It sounds like Nikki ignored a condition that she knew she had and killed herself. Of course that is sad, but it is not the government's job to protect us from ourselves, and the healthcare industry cannot force us to follow the best course of treatment, and the medical industry cannot guarantee that such a course of treatment is the best for every individual.
Sure, it's easy to just demonize healthcare industry, but blaming the party that didn't cause the problem and isn't the problem isn't a solution. The problem is the government. We do not need healthcare reform, we need the laws making it so easy to sue doctors for emotional trauma when they did everything they could but couldn't help to stop. Did Nikki's parents sue the doctors? i bet they did, when she waited so long to get help that there was nothing they could do for her, all the surgeries were to fix damage that her own body did to itself and that could have been prevented. That's not the doctor's fault. It's not the Healthcare industry's fault that she refused to seek care. It's painful, but then the truth often is. Let blame lie where it belongs, not on the big bad wolf.
sometimes nothing is better than anything
Back in September, one of my friends on Facebook linked to an article in the New York Times on her wall. The title of the Op Ed is "The Body Count at Home" and talks about a young woman who died from lupus. When i read it, i of course felt it was sad, but was offended by the fact that the article claims that certain members of Congress want us to do "nothing" for people like her (quote: "About as many people who were killed on 9/11 die every two months because of our failure to provide universal insurance and yet many members of Congress want us to do nothing?"). i wanted to say something to this friend, to everyone, but was worried about offending people, despite the fact that i had been offended. Since reading the article and not responding i have had writers block. i think of that article often and wish that i would have written something in response, and then it felt like i had waited too long. Well, the healthcare debate reared it's nasty head in Congress again this weekend, and i'm tired of having writer's block, i think that it's finally time for me to get this off my chest. Please keep in mind that i'm not writing this trying to offend anyone, rather to set some inconsistencies straight and point out some facts. As Rush likes to point out, a lot of people feel better about themselves because they feel sorry when something bad happens to someone, but their solution often only makes things worse for everyone, let alone that one individual.
To start off, this claim that about 1366 people in the U.S. are dying without healthcare every other month seems a bit steep. Where did that number come from? Did Mr. Kristof discover a source for that bit of info or did someone ad it onto the headline to catch interest and inflame people's sensibilities?
To sum up about Nikki (the 21 year old that the piece is about), she's a college grad with lupus that worked in healthcare that gradually got too sick to work so she lost her own healthcare. Kristof then brings up the author of a book who took up Nikki's plight (of course he's not trying to advertise said book, is he?), who says that Nikki couldn't find any new coverage because of her pre-existing condition. "She spent months painfully writing letters to anyone she thought might be able to help. She fought tenaciously for her life."
This flowery language draws sympathy but is weak in the facts department. One would think that because Nikki worked in the industry she would know a few things about keeping her coverage: the article makes it sound like she had the money to pay for it, after all. My question is, why didn't she use Cobra? That's how i paid for my wisdom teeth surgery after i quit working at KJCT. I find it hard to believe that she couldn't find one company to insure her or anyone else to help. There are other sources to consider such as research funds for those with Lupus, free hospitals/clinics, paying for her care out of pocket, and if she was truly disabled then drawing on disability from the government. Of course the next logical place to look for help would be the community: she could have tried raising the funds, asking for donations, seeking help at church, etc. A woman that goes to my church helped a friend raise money when that friend's daughter had cancer, and i am talking about extreme amounts of money, they were able to raise all the money. And, if all else fails, there is the emergency room, which is used every day by people that don't have an emergency but cannot afford medical insurance, often with no cost to the patient, just to the taxpayers.
Unfortunately, it seems as if Nikki liked writing letters until she was in pain more than the idea of actually getting care, because it wasn't until she "collapsed at her home" that she was "rushed to a hospital emergency room, which was then required to treat her without payment until her condition stabilized". By that point, her condition was apparently so bad that surgery wasn't enough... and died at the age of 32. Did you catch that? She lived 11 years after losing her job in the health care industry. She apparently had her own home. The medical workers were wonderful, but she "fell through the cracks."
Please don't misunderstand me, it's sad that she died at the age of 32... but the language that Mr. Kristof uses makes it sound like all of this happened overnight. She had ten years of her own choices that influnced what happened to her life. Mr. Kristof advises that it would have been better of her to rob a bank so she could get free healthcare (because it's so horrible the way we make sure our criminals stay healthy in the U.S.), i'm rather surprised he doesn't just advise her to move to Canada or the UK where they have this perfect healthcare system, where care is free for everyone, etc. My sympathies go out to her parents, but really... could this article be more overdramatic?
The saddest thing about this article is that the parents and author and columnist expect the government to fix the healthcare system. I am fully aware that such is the opinion of what must be done on one side of the issue. On the other side of the issue, we are looking at what the government has done with Social Security, the Stimulus package, etc., and are loudly saying keep your hands off. On this side, we are looking at countries such as Canada, where it takes weeks just to get to see a doctor, and the UK, where women are going to the hospital to have their babies only to be turned away, and giving birth in stairwells and bathrooms instead, and wondering what's so great about that system. Canadians, and British, and people from around the world come to the U.S. to get better medical care, not the other way around. I wonder about why people like Michael J. Fox want the socialization of healthcare when it means that all the funding for research is going to get cut in order to cut down on costs.
Would socialized healthcare have saved Nikki? Possibly, though i have seen no proof that there was any medical care to help her. All of the surgeries she received were reportedly ineffectual. What i do know is that Nikki's surgeries got paid for by our tax dollars even without the reforms that my friend is supporting, and that if those reforms go through then all the coverage for my grandparents will immediately be cut and rationed. My grandparents have paid taxes their entire lives, who is my friend or the government to tell them that they are no longer worthy of full coverage just because they have grown old? Grandad doesn't deserve any healthcare because he's got dementia? If the government can take away coverage because of that, what is to stop them from taking coverage away from Nikki? For that matter, what is to stop them from forcing coverage on me when i do not want it and then jailing or fining me because i want to have my children at home, not circumcise them, not get them vaccinated, and not tie my tubes? What's to stop them from anything when they control our health, our very lives? What indeed.
To start off, this claim that about 1366 people in the U.S. are dying without healthcare every other month seems a bit steep. Where did that number come from? Did Mr. Kristof discover a source for that bit of info or did someone ad it onto the headline to catch interest and inflame people's sensibilities?
To sum up about Nikki (the 21 year old that the piece is about), she's a college grad with lupus that worked in healthcare that gradually got too sick to work so she lost her own healthcare. Kristof then brings up the author of a book who took up Nikki's plight (of course he's not trying to advertise said book, is he?), who says that Nikki couldn't find any new coverage because of her pre-existing condition. "She spent months painfully writing letters to anyone she thought might be able to help. She fought tenaciously for her life."
This flowery language draws sympathy but is weak in the facts department. One would think that because Nikki worked in the industry she would know a few things about keeping her coverage: the article makes it sound like she had the money to pay for it, after all. My question is, why didn't she use Cobra? That's how i paid for my wisdom teeth surgery after i quit working at KJCT. I find it hard to believe that she couldn't find one company to insure her or anyone else to help. There are other sources to consider such as research funds for those with Lupus, free hospitals/clinics, paying for her care out of pocket, and if she was truly disabled then drawing on disability from the government. Of course the next logical place to look for help would be the community: she could have tried raising the funds, asking for donations, seeking help at church, etc. A woman that goes to my church helped a friend raise money when that friend's daughter had cancer, and i am talking about extreme amounts of money, they were able to raise all the money. And, if all else fails, there is the emergency room, which is used every day by people that don't have an emergency but cannot afford medical insurance, often with no cost to the patient, just to the taxpayers.
Unfortunately, it seems as if Nikki liked writing letters until she was in pain more than the idea of actually getting care, because it wasn't until she "collapsed at her home" that she was "rushed to a hospital emergency room, which was then required to treat her without payment until her condition stabilized". By that point, her condition was apparently so bad that surgery wasn't enough... and died at the age of 32. Did you catch that? She lived 11 years after losing her job in the health care industry. She apparently had her own home. The medical workers were wonderful, but she "fell through the cracks."
Please don't misunderstand me, it's sad that she died at the age of 32... but the language that Mr. Kristof uses makes it sound like all of this happened overnight. She had ten years of her own choices that influnced what happened to her life. Mr. Kristof advises that it would have been better of her to rob a bank so she could get free healthcare (because it's so horrible the way we make sure our criminals stay healthy in the U.S.), i'm rather surprised he doesn't just advise her to move to Canada or the UK where they have this perfect healthcare system, where care is free for everyone, etc. My sympathies go out to her parents, but really... could this article be more overdramatic?
The saddest thing about this article is that the parents and author and columnist expect the government to fix the healthcare system. I am fully aware that such is the opinion of what must be done on one side of the issue. On the other side of the issue, we are looking at what the government has done with Social Security, the Stimulus package, etc., and are loudly saying keep your hands off. On this side, we are looking at countries such as Canada, where it takes weeks just to get to see a doctor, and the UK, where women are going to the hospital to have their babies only to be turned away, and giving birth in stairwells and bathrooms instead, and wondering what's so great about that system. Canadians, and British, and people from around the world come to the U.S. to get better medical care, not the other way around. I wonder about why people like Michael J. Fox want the socialization of healthcare when it means that all the funding for research is going to get cut in order to cut down on costs.
Would socialized healthcare have saved Nikki? Possibly, though i have seen no proof that there was any medical care to help her. All of the surgeries she received were reportedly ineffectual. What i do know is that Nikki's surgeries got paid for by our tax dollars even without the reforms that my friend is supporting, and that if those reforms go through then all the coverage for my grandparents will immediately be cut and rationed. My grandparents have paid taxes their entire lives, who is my friend or the government to tell them that they are no longer worthy of full coverage just because they have grown old? Grandad doesn't deserve any healthcare because he's got dementia? If the government can take away coverage because of that, what is to stop them from taking coverage away from Nikki? For that matter, what is to stop them from forcing coverage on me when i do not want it and then jailing or fining me because i want to have my children at home, not circumcise them, not get them vaccinated, and not tie my tubes? What's to stop them from anything when they control our health, our very lives? What indeed.
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