busyOysters for Health Care
This week, Regina Benjamin was nominated by President Obama as our next surgeon general, charged with educating Americans on medical issues and overseeing the United States Public Health Service. She was the first African-American woman to head a state medical society, a member of the board of trustees of the American Medical Association and last year was named the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius award."
I am pleased to see a black woman headed for a position of authority, especially as she has experience working in extremely deprived neighborhoods and getting the job done anyhow. Her qualifications sound perfect for the current situation.
Although the clinic has not been able to give Dr. Benjamin a salary for years - Mayor Wright says she's owed over $300,000 - she buys medicine for her patients out of her own pocket. In fact, many of the folks in Regina Benjamin's bayou town are so poor that sometimes she's paid with a pint of oysters or a couple of fish. She's fine with that. And she makes house calls.
Dr. Benjamin evidently considers health care a right and a necessity, not a privilege reserved for those who can afford it. This is prudent.
Now meet H. Edward Hanway, chairman and CEO of CIGNA, the country's fourth-largest insurance company. At the beginning of the year, CIGNA blamed hard economic times when it announced the layoff of 1,100 employees, but it reported first-quarter profits of $208 million on revenues of nearly $5 billion. Mr. Hanway has announced his retirement at the end of the year, and the living will be easy for him, financially at least. He made $11.4 million in 2008, according to The Associated Press, and some years more than that.
Hanway evidently considers health care an appropriate place for personal aggrandizement. He would rather fire workers than lower his own huge paycheck or his company's huge profit. Insurance companies today have a pervasive tendency to suck people in by seeming to promise more than they actually deliver; they seek out the healthiest customers and reject the unhealthy who might actually require care; and then when claims are made, they deny as many of those as possible on often spurious grounds. In essence, insurance has become largely a means of redistributing wealth from the poor and middle-class to the very wealthy. I think that is filthy. People have a right to make a living, but not to do so by harming others.
This time, don't let them scare you. "It should not be this hard for doctors and other health care providers to care for their patients," Dr. Regina Benjamin said when she was nominated this week. "It shouldn't be this expensive for Americans to get health care in this country."
You go, girl!
The push to overhaul the system that takes care of America’s health may be on the verge of morphing into something even grander, a promising new offensive against the unhealthy concentration of America’s wealth. The entire House Democratic leadership now stands united behind health care reform legislation that hikes taxes on America’s richest well beyond the levels that pundits, over recent years, have deemed “politically feasible.”
This is a closer look at the proposed tax on the wealthy to cover health costs.
If it were up to me, I'd put a low tax rate on primary income (from creating goods or providing services) and a very high one on money made by diddling things around without doing real work (dividends, speculation, etc.). A lot of what's gotten us into this mess is rewarding people hugely for things that aren't work while not rewarding people for things that are work. You get what you reward.
July 18 2009, 18:32:53 UTC 11 years ago
Have you ever watched a bunch of collectors going into a frenzy over baseball cards or comic books? That is all a lot of Wall Street actually does... they create an illusion of value where there actually is none, and then everybody gets worked up about it.
Then, there was the insurance that I was supposed to be selling. "Peace of mind" they told me was my product. They also taught me how to avoid paying out. In other words, so long as you never need it, I can make you feel really good... for only about $300/month.
I looked clean at work, but I always came home feeling like I needed a shower.
Thoughts
July 18 2009, 18:46:25 UTC 11 years ago
Bless you for being a decent person, even at cost. I think a huge problem today is that people are often pressured to compromise their ethics in order to make a living and support their families. After a while of that, you wind up with a lot of people who have little or nothing left in the ethics department, but lots of money and influence. Furthermore, the high-profit sectors of the economy attract people with minimal moral objections to the way business is done, so when added to the moral erosion, that means almost everyone involved there is unlikely to stop just because people are getting hurt.
>>Have you ever watched a bunch of collectors going into a frenzy over baseball cards or comic books? That is all a lot of Wall Street actually does... they create an illusion of value where there actually is none, and then everybody gets worked up about it. <<
It is my nature to see through illusions, so yes, that matches my perception of Wall Street. I also have a low opinion of Wall Street because it creates massive boom/bust cycles that wreak terrible harm on innocent bystanders, but refuses to acknowledge responsibility for the harm done or to make changes so as to prevent future harm.
>>Then, there was the insurance that I was supposed to be selling. "Peace of mind" they told me was my product. They also taught me how to avoid paying out. In other words, so long as you never need it, I can make you feel really good... for only about $300/month.<<
Sort of like giving your soul to Jesus because you thought you'd go to Heaven, only to find out that he'd sold it to Lucifer for 30 pieces of silver and you wound up in Hell after all. Without even having gotten to covet thy neighbor's wife along the way!
>>I looked clean at work, but I always came home feeling like I needed a shower.<<
I so sympathize. That's a horrible feeling.
Thank you for sharing. This inside view is very valuable.
Re: Thoughts
July 18 2009, 19:02:18 UTC 11 years ago
BTW... I am CONSTANTLY approached by financial firms now. And, I really did hate it so very much that I refuse to answer their calls, even as desperate as I am. I get a lot of criticism for that, too.
Re: Thoughts
July 19 2009, 06:07:20 UTC 11 years ago
I've lost, or turned down, more than one serious writing assignment because of ethical issues -- usually my standards being higher than somebody else's. It frustrates me to be put in a position where I have to choose between professional ethics and putting beans on the table. I'm getting to where I'll consider doing a shoddy job if that's what the buyer wants, if I can do it under a pen name or the like. But I won't put my name on it and call it good, and I won't do something that would make me think less of myself.