I have had the longest day I’ve probably had in a very, very long time. I’m a night person, so typically I don’t wake up before nine in the morning. But, this morning, I got up at 6:00am. Yup, that’s right, six o’clock in the morning. Why? Cause I had a nice new internet friend to meet! At 7:30 I had breakfast with Spencer, a very interesting, kind, intelligent guy. We talked for two hours over waffles and I had a fabulous time. Sadly, he’s moving back to Arizona… what luck, eh? Meet a nice new friend and he up and moves to practically the other side of the country. Pft.
So that’s why I got up. It was worth it, and thankfully I managed to get enough sleep last night. Of course, I had to take a serious pain killer to actually fall asleep before midnight, but oh well. (It was also for a headache that I’ve now had for four consecutive days. And, since it was a narcotic, it happened to knock me out as well. How convenient.) I meant to take a nap when I got home, but then I realized it would completely mess up my sleep schedule again. Plus, I didn’t have any time. I was home just long enough to design this blog, code it real fast (hence why you shouldn’t look at the code – it’s icky), and have it ready in time for Kevin to fix by the time he got here.
Kevin came over so he and I could go to a big Howard Dean rally in Falls Church. Before I get into my big Howard Dean review, I should note that I am not affiliated with any political party – don’t like any of them, honestly – and I have no clue who I’ll be voting for in 2004. I’ve tried to research the candidates, but haven’t gotten very far yet and from what I’ve seen as of recently, I really don’t like any of them.
Okay, now for the review. I’ve never been to a political rally before, I so really didn’t know what to expect. It turned out to be kind of like a picnic concert-in-the-park kind of deal. It was honestly rather entertaining at first. Old memories of Bisbee, Arizona kept flashing before my mind as I saw what looked like a bunch of old, retired hippies, mixing it up with some alterna-wannabe 20-somethings. Some of the people kind of made me laugh. There was one particular woman dressed in a black shirt with “Impeach Bush” written in bright white across her chest. She had the typical short, dyed black hair; the black choker around her neck; and, naturally, no bra whatsoever. There was a reggae band on stage that was relatively good, but she was jamming all by herself as if she were at a Good Charlotte concert. Once the reggae band left the stage, she didn’t quit, even though she was now jamming not only alone but to a recording of U2. She kept singing along, with Bush bouncing right along with her.
There was a relatively large crowd there; about 4,100 people, according to the Sheriff. I didn’t really see the full crowd, since I was seated off to the left of the stage, in the “Handicap World”, as one volunteer called it. I’m very, very glad I at least got to sit down, cause that crowd looked kinda cramped. I’ve tried to compare the numbers to something I might recognize. MCI Center holds something like 20,000 people. Dwarfs the rally. I went to an Army Marching Band Review thingie at the Iwo Jima Memorial once – that was 2,000 people. Heck, Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to several hundred thousand at his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. I’m not sure the numbers at the rally really compare. All I can say is I consider myself very, very luck that Kevin and I didn’t have to wait in any long lines – we had amazing luck when it came to being in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.
Now, as for Mr. Dean himself. I can’t say I’m going to vote for him. I went with as much of an open mind as I could muster, listened attentively to what he had to say, and I just honestly don’t agree with him on a lot of major points. I admire him if he truly is as honest as he claims to be, I applaude him for being passionate about his convinctions, I just don’t happen to agree with him. That’s all.
I suppose some people might want to know what I don’t agree with him on. I won’t go through it all, I’ll just name the one thing that really shocked me the most. I wasn’t expecting it at all, so it came as a bit of a surprise. I’m going to try to quote as much as possible, but know that my memory isn’t perfect. I’ll get direct quotes as soon as I can get to the online transcript. Anyway. He started to talk about how with so many unemployed people, so many Americans must be wondering how their family’s healthcare will be covered. That struck me as a bit odd, since anyone in this nation cannot be refused treatment if you walk into an Emergency Room. Furthermore, all children are covered under Medicare and Medicaid. I even think in some states that most adults are covered.
Anyway. That’s not what surprised me. True, it was a bit of a shock that with what he said at the rally (I’ll get quotes once it’s up), Dean’s either a very honest man and very uninformed, or he’s dishonest and hiding an agenda with rhetoric. I honestly can’t tell which, so I’m not accusing him of anything. But, his solution to this problem did bother me.
He said that under his plan, all unemployed Americans will be covered by our tax dollars, and that no one will be denied healthcare. First off, as I mentioned, no one’s denied urgent healthcare. There are often free clinics available for other medical care to all those who need it.
Secondly, his plan sounded an awful lot like socialized medicine. I was convinced when he started saying that his plan has already “proven successful” in countries like “France, Canada, Australia” et cetera. Yeah, that plan has a name; socialized medicince. I’m curious why he didn’t name it, since it’s a plan that has already been in place, has statistical studies available, and has a *name*.
All of that aside, I honestly don’t believe socialized medicine will solve anything in this nation. First we have to look at the other nations that have socialized medicine in place. It may work for some, but it certainly does not level the playing field like Mr. Dean discussed. I’ve known far too many people in dire circumstances in socialized healthcare countries that simply couldn’t get medical care.
For example, a good friend of mine lives in Australia. He’s an elderly man, but still in generally good health. He injured his head a few years ago so badly that his scalp was severely cut and he was bleeding profusely. He was rushed to the emergency room, where instead of being treated as he would have in an American hospital, he had to wait for twelve hours. Twelve hours, with a dangerous *bleeding* headwound! Not only was that dangerous considering how much blood he was losing and his age, he couldn’t have safely received stitches – it is not considered medically sound to stitch a wound after eight hours, tops. Why did this happen? Because of their socialized medical system.
The same thing has happened to friends of mine in Great Britain, Germany, France, and Canada; all of these nations were listed by Howard Dean as countries with medical systems supposedly far more advanced than our own. I can’t accept that. Sure, there are people in dire conditions right now employment-wise, but if they were bleeding profusely and walked into an emergency room, they wouldn’t be forced to wait. How do I know that? I’ve done it, several times. Another one of my friends who was on holiday in Germany from the UK had an almost identical injury to one I had when I was 15. We both sliced our hands open so badly that we could see inside the wound (remarkably, my knuckle looks a lot like chicken). Poor Jackie had to wait for 14 hours in a German socialized-care emergency room, whereas I had no wait at all. I was stitched, x-rayed, given appropriate medication, and evaluated by a surgeon immediately – that whole process took only two hours.
I’ve been through hospitals so much that I know the system. I know what happens when under-priviledged families without insurance go through hospitals. More often than not, they’re fine. In fact, when I had an operation on my foot in 2000, I shared a hospital room with some pretty interesting people over the course of five days. My first day, the bed next to mine was occupied by a French girl whose family had flown her all the way to America simply to avoid socialized medical care – she had been denied an operation that she needed to live. The next day, that same bed was occupied by an African American child from the slums of Baltimore. No insurance, and she was receiving the same care that I did.
I agree with Howard Dean that there are still problems with American medical care, but I think socialized medical care is nowhere near the answer. The problem is, in fact, that insurance companies have too much control over the medical care. My Grandmother can’t get the medication she needs after having a serious operation simply because the insurance companies won’t pay for it. And, Doctors have to pay so much for coverage that they barely break even. Socialized medicine will only make this worse, and I highly doubt any American would seriously put up with that system if they became ill. Especially in a life-threatening situation – you wouldn’t believe the number of Europeans I know that would have died if they had not been able to afford private insurance.
Basically, from my own experience, I believe Howard Dean is wrong: Socialized healthcare won’t level the playing field, it will only make it worse. It’s a class-structured way of practicing medicine – if you can’t afford private health insurance (which, incidentally, is more expensive to the individual under socialized healthcare), then you’re basically SOL in a time-critical situation. You’ll end up like my friend Hans in Australia, bleeding in a waiting room for so long they can’t even stitch your wound. That doesn’t sound like fun, does it?
That one issue is enough to keep me from voting for Howard Dean, and there are a few other points I strongly disagree with. Again, I can’t tell if he’s just misinformed or dishonest. I’m wondering if he’s ever really been to any of those countries he listed and tried to have anything taken care of at a hospital, among other things.
The rally was interesting and I am glad I went. I very nearly didn’t go because I had such a horrible headache, but I knew how important it was to Kevin that I go, and also I wanted to hear the issues straight from the man himself. It makes certain things clearer, and I think I was able to get a better picture of who he really is without any kind of media spin or publicity spin. Now I know I can honestly refuse to vote for him based on what I believe to be an informed, calculated decision.
*sigh* I know voting’s important, but I’m really not looking forward to it. So far, I really don’t like any of the candidates, none of the parties… What’s a voter to do?
I’m not sure if I like this new look. I always go through this when I redesign my blog. I always flip back and forth between loving it and hating it. Give it a day or two and then I’ll have a final verdict. Either way, I really need to get over this headache and code it in CSS so it’s not such an “ugly mass of tables”, as Kevin put it. 🙂
Argh, can I have a new head, please? I think I may take another perkaset tonight, I really can’t stand this. It’s in such an uncomfortable spot too, right on the base of my head. It feels like there’s a giant clamp on the back of my head, and it’s kinda making my eyes shake. I think I’m gonna sleep in tomorrow. Days so shouldn’t be this long. I miss waking up at noon… 🙂 I know, it’s bad, but everything looks so much better when you wake up after a nice lay-in.