A Sad, Sad America

product1 While nursing a case of the flu last weekend, I again began reflecting on how sad and utterly pathetic America has become. Instead of being a nation that cares about each other, we are a selfish nation. While I have a comparatively mild case of the flu, I am thinking of the millions of Americans growing sicker and weaker because they cannot afford to see a doctor because the system is raping them. It is a very sorry state of affairs when we have become so selfish and money driven that we are willing to make extra money on someone else’s decline. I read yesterday about doctors no longer accepting insurance and forcing people to pay between 1500-1800 dollars per year for a service that they so-call, “preferred care.” Oftimes this “preferred care” scheme is just that, a scheme. This, pun fully intended, sickens me greatly. It seems like doctors today have forgotten the oaths they have taken in medical school.

If doctors go to the “preferred care” system then everyone will be much worse off. Yesterday, MSNC had an article about a man that had to make a choice (if one could even call that a choice) between his high blood pressure and his wife’s cancer. In the end, he did a valiant thing by defferring to his wife. If more people had that selfless vs. selfish attitude, everyone would be better off. This man could not afford to pay for healthcare for the two of them and these were hardworking middle class Americans.

Where did these problems begin? They began with Edward Kaiser and Richard Nixon and were “enhanced” by Ronald Reagan and George Bush. We thought we would see a major change in healthcare when Hillary Clinton gave it a go in the early 1990s only to fail because the national mood was not quite angry enough yet. Although, there were some improvements during the Clinton years only to be erased during the dark Bush-Cheyney era. Bush and Cheyney, in none to few words told all Americans to die from their sicknesses. My very distant relative Myer Lansky, while not a decent person himself, had one good saying, “The fish stinks from the head.” A corrupt leadership such as Bush-Cheyney will encourage corruption in what would be tantamount to the trickle down effect. So no doubt, the large corporations said, “Wow, we have free reign. We can now benefit on our employees’ deaths.”