I had planned a post today on the state of health care in America, but now I have a headache.
Stayed up all night, caught up in reading transcripts of the “Health Care Wars” between CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Larry King and “Sicko” director Michael Moore and between New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and Fox News’ Neil Cavuto.
Then, after reading all that was said for myself, listening to Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly lying about it all and scaring the hell out of his ignorant fans. I need an aspirin!
Thrown into the mix was Anderson Cooper’s CNN report on the testimony before a Congressional committee yesterday by former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and Vice Admiral (Ret.) Richard Carmona, who until a year ago was surgeon general under George W. Bush.
Here is what Carmona told Congress about his days as the nation’s top doctor under Bush:
“The reality is that the nation's doctor has been marginalized and relegated to a position with no independent budget and with supervisors who are political appointees with partisan agendas.
“Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is often ignored, marginalized or simply buried.
“The problem with this approach is that, in public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds. The job of the surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation, not the doctor of a political party.”
Carmona told Cooper many past surgeon generals had been forced to forego science in the face of ideology, theology or politics. Health issues such as abortion, contraception – the Bush administration has an abstinence-only policy – AIDS and embryonic stem cell research could not be explained adequately, in a scientific way, to the American public. LINK
***
Maybe I’ll get my thoughts together on the nation’s health-care problems another day – maybe after the Dark Ages.
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A warm welcome to the naturally curious, the politically engaged and constant learners. I am a retired newspaper editor with a fickle foe, retinitis pigmentosa, or RP. While my sense of sight is waning, my "vision" is not, and, by God, I can still see my dreams!
simply ...
- B.J.
- South Carolina, United States
- constant learner
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2 comments:
No human problem is insoluble. Frodo long believed that the discord between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland came closest to being eternal. Now it is merely an example that, over time, wounds heal. The Health Care crisis in America, the scene of political disaster time-after-time since Harry Truman first attempted to act upon it, is a problem that is merely a corollary to the overriding social issue of our time; the increasing gap between rich-and-poor.
Our system of rewards based on hard work exacerbates the protection that some feel for what they have earned. That will not change for those in coming generations who see a dimunition of their dreams to meet the needs of those who have little, or nothing. For the first time ever, our national humanity is under assault. We must begin the debate from a point of "common ground," that in this land no one starves or freezes. Frodo is ashamed that we are not yet to such a point.
I am one who believes there's an answer to every question and a solution to every problem. I am one who believes there's enough resources in the world that no one should go to bed cold or hungry. But they also need a bed with a roof over it. in other words, a place to call home. We are our brothers/sisters keeper.
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