Why does everything close so early here? When I lived in Cookeville, Tennessee, I could go shopping 24/7/365 thanks to the Super Walmart. And I could buy beer at all kinds of crazy hours because they sell it at every gas station and convenience store. Cookeville, by the way, is a small town in the middle of nowhere. Now I live in a major metro area just outside the nation's capitol and I can't buy shit after 9pm and even 6pm on Sundays. Did someone move the Bible Belt when I wasn't looking?
Incidentally, Walmart was recently in the news because they don't pay shit and their employees are for the most part below the poverty level in terms of wages. So the State of Maryland wants to require them to increase spending on healthcare as a condition of doing business in MD. Now Walmart is talking about closing their stores in Maryland. Boy, we sure did show them! Now instead of people having crappy paying jobs, they'll have no jobs.
Now I hate the idea of Walmart and McDonald's and Home Depot just as much as the next guy, but you can't just have businesses closing their doors and costing thousands of jobs because you want to fight the good fight. This is a perfect example of the kind of scenario I'm always pointing out to my partisan friends and why I hate our two-party political system. Some people think if you're middle of the road in your politics it really means you're non-committal. I think if you're firmly in one of the two available camps on most issues, you don't have a full understanding of those issues:
Donnie Darko: Life isn't that simple. I mean who cares if Ling Ling returns the wallet and keeps the money? It has nothing to do with either fear or love.
Kitty Farmer: Fear and love are the deepest of human emotions.
Donnie Darko: Okay. But you're not listening to me. There are other things that need to be taken into account here. Like the whole spectrum of human emotion. You can't just lump everything into these two categories and then just deny everything else!
Maybe the MD Walmart stores should just go ahead an open healthcare facilities in their stores and provide a 50% discount on medical services for their employees...and stay open 24 hours...and sell beer.
Haha, I'm definitely into the creative problem-solving!
I was sitting in a car at 3am on Saturday night (Sunday morning) with two friends who were *not* ready to go home and go to bed. We racked our brains to find somewhere to go, but everyone is kicked out of the fun places between 1:30-2:30am in DC. Sucks!
Now then, while I agree that picking on Walmart isn't neccesarily fair, it would be a great time to talk about a national health care system ;)
I am generally opposed to a national healthcare system. Here are a few reasons off the top of my head:
- Government programs are historically inefficient. Although 100% of Americans would be covered, I think the net cost for 85% of Americans would be significantly higher.
- Many pro-choice people believe the government has no business telling them what they can or can't do with their bodies. I agree. But many pro-choice people are also pro national healthcare, which brings up an interesting point: do you really want the federal government to be that much closer to dictating the terms of your medical coverage? Do you think politics wouldn't get involved in national healthcare here in the US? Keep in mind that this is not a significant consideration in the more liberal countries that already have national healthcare because they don't have the legions of Jesus freaks with political clout that we do. It makes national healthcare a much more dicey proposition here in the US.
- I think healthcare costs are high because insurance and litigation costs are just crazy. Now I'm not saying people shouldn't be able to seek compensation for medical malpractice, but our level of litigiousness is out of control. If we want to get to the bottom of this problem, we might start there. Maybe put medical malpractice lawyers in a special 80% tax bracket ;)
All that being said, I am starting to lean toward the idea of national healthcare as a viable solution. Something, for Christ's sake, needs to offset the increasing power of the corporations and lobbyists. Corporations themselves are becoming like small governments, exerting immeasurable influence on our politcal process and most of us can't vote in their boardrooms. Here's few of my arguments for national healthcare:
- Privatization is a knee jerk solution to almost every problem as far as Republicans are concerned, but it doesn't always work. I don't think many people in California would argue that privatizing public utilities was a good idea, for example. Maybe some types of services are better suited to be run by the government.
- I think the privacy issue is pretty solid, especially with all the recent government spying controversy. I'd like to hear a good refutation of this point.
- Maybe nationalizing our healthcare system is the only way to get the medical malpractice suits under control. If the government's running healthcare, it seems like doctors would have less exposure legally, no? That could be good or bad, I don't know. But by not passing off all those insurance and legal costs to the patient, any increase in costs resulting from bureaucracy might be offset.
wow, good points from the both of you. i'll forward this along to raise discussion. i'm interested as well.
Both of me? Well I am a Gemini ;)
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