Unholy Prophecy

Many are trying to block Healthcare reform by spreading bleak worst case scenarios of the mix of absolute political power and medical technology, extrapolating a dark future to which the legislation could ultimately lead. But I am wary of such prophetic projections, and, speaking from first hand experience myself, I am sure that huge jumps are being made in such calculations. Indeed, I believe it is a grievous misstep to incite fear against legislation being proposed today to HELP people who are CURRENTLY not being properly cared for medically, based solely on the premonition that it COULD lead to abuse of power and loss of needed care for others in some "Brave New World" of the future.

I personally find these tactics not only lacking integrity, but also unbiblical, disobedient to Jesus' teachings, and glorifying the darkness rather than the Father of Light, who has given us a Good News of God's victory in the world to be bearers of. I am mortified at how many Christians are spreading a message of doom and gloom, of the hopeless "inevitability" of man's depravity, using scare tactics and generally being caught up in a fear frenzy instead of being the torchbearers for the transforming power of the cross: A message of Faith, Hope and Love.

Jesus has warned us to not only not be overly confident about the future, but also not to "meddle" in it, not to "hang out there," not to overlook the present good we can do (each day has its own worries), by being too concerned with what evils might be headed our way in the future. My gut feeling tells me that these attempts at "foreseeing" are akin to witchcraft: trying to gain power over present circumstances by grasping beyond the veil, "divining" what only God can know for sure.

I personally can testify that such measures to insure all citizens of their basic medical needs does NOT lead to the kind of government, genetic Cherry picking, that they are suggesting. Wether it be our 90 year old, widowed landlady with no near relatives, who receives regular home visits from her doctor; the 3 year daughter of friends of ours, who has Down Syndrome and is getting the best treatment possible now for Leukemia, or my own expensive MRIs, OP and extensive hospital stays for a preexisting back condition, I can assure you that the Doctor-Patient relationship here in Germany is in good health. Any claims to the contrary are a misrepresentation of the facts, which are easily accessible and verifiable, and lacks the integrity necessary for an honest and serious debate. Here is good information for how healthcare is actually provided for now in the other industrialized countries (of which America is the only one without universal coverage) http://www.healthpaconline.net/rekindling/Articles/Glasser.htm

(another two good articles describing Germany's system can be linked to from here .

I was very happy to find this morning that the bill in the house passed, and happier still to find that a good band of Democrats (64), led by Rep. Stupak, used their leadership to block federal funding for abortions and still get a bill passed that would make a tremendous impact on the lives of 36 Million Americans. So, again, it is just not accurate to make claims that "Democrats" are supportive of abortion loopholes. A good bloc of 40 fought hard for the amendment, 64 voted for it, and it was the only Democratic amendment that Pelosi allowed on the floor (to the vexation of abortion advocate party members). Post article

In addition, as reported by the Wash. Post:

"The complex package would affect virtually every American and fundamentally alter vast swaths of the health insurance industry. Starting next year, private insurers could no longer deny anyone coverage based on preexisting conditions, place lifetime limits on coverage or abandon people when they become ill. Insurers would be required to disclose and justify proposed premium increases to regulators, and could not remove adult children younger than 27 from their parents' family policies.

For the elderly, the group that has been most skeptical of Obama's initiative, the House package would immediately offer discounts on prescription drugs and reduce a gap in Medicare prescription drug coverage, closing it entirely by 2019. Uninsured people who cannot get coverage could join temporary high-risk insurance pools, and unemployed workers would be permitted to keep their COBRA benefits until the public plan and insurance exchanges started in 2013." Post article

These are good things, and they are long over due in a Nation that still claims to be leading the world in Democracy. I truly hope that we can bring the political will of the people to bear on the unjust practices of the Insurance and Pharmaceutical industries who have become the bullies on the block in our time zone, one of the "worries" of our "today," which we can legitimately be concerned about.

(Similar post)

Germany's Health Care System

I wanted to write something explaining Germany's Health Care system, and perhaps clear up some false assumptions and claims being made about "Socialized Medicine." Thankfully once I started to look for information to fill in my own blanks, I ran across these two great articles by a Professor at Princeton who gives not only a concise and informative (what we really need to know) summary of Germany's Universal Health Care Coverage, but also highlights the antipodal assumptions of our two countries' approaches to filling this fundamental human need. So, thank you Uwe Reinhardt for saving me a ton of work.

1. Health Reform Without a Public Plan: The German Model

2. Germany's Health Care Plan: It's Not The American Way

I’ll Have Those Words With Ketchup, Please.

For the seventeen years I’ve been living in Germany, my favorite way of describing the difference between Americans and Germans was to use the train-station illustration. If a German and an American were waiting for a train in a station with no announcements and no signs on the platforms, the German would sit until kingdom come before he got on a train that might be going the wrong direction. “The American,” I have, until now, proclaimed confidently, “would get on the first train out of there and then hop back off again if he found it taking him somewhere he didn’t want to go.” But thanks to the current debate on Healthcare reform, I have had to eat those words without any sauce to help them go down. Where did all those rugged, brave Americans disappear to? What has happened to their adventuresome spirit? What awful specter has struck this paralyzing fear into the hearts of my fellow countrymen?

During numerous failed attempts to convince friends and loved ones of the merits of getting on the Healthcare Reform Train, I believe I have caught glimpses of the apparition which is haunting them: The Spook of Slippery Slope. The logic is always the same: “If we take a left at this intersection, we will end up in Communist China.” “If you follow this to its logical extreme, you will see how dangerous such a first step actually is.” “Give ‘em a hand, they’ll take off your whole arm.” The most extreme example of such arguments came before Obama’s election in a letter from James Dobson from the year 2012 of an eventual Obama administration: A worst case scenario of all loathed liberal ideology; a conservative’s “Nightmare on Main street!”

Unfortunately, the scare tactics haven’t disappeared with election defeat. Blocking the way to meaningful reform is a large minority of Americans who appear to be stuck in this ideological cul-de-sac. In continuing to defer to some extrapolated future nemesis, this “un-American” brand of conservatism is not only holding the country hostage in “juncture station,” it is also dodging its responsibility for the actual and current suffering in America and is eluding the necessary systemic evaluation and reform of our run away free market. These voices of caution might imagine that they are trying to save Americans from some future calamity which reform would bring upon us, but many Americans are living through tragedy now, for which our present, undeniably flawed healthcare system is responsible. The fox is in the coop with a hen in his mouth, and some would warn us to barricade the farm house against an inevitable poultry revolution!

Of course there are “slippery slopes”: If I open a bag of chocolate chip cookies, chances are I will eat them all, and it is probably not a good idea to try heroin even once. But reality rarely fleshes out this law of extremism. When I leave the house and hang a left, I usually make a right before too long, and then another left and so on, until I get to Starbucks, to work or to my hairdresser. Most of us, most of the time, don’t dump the whole bottle of Tabasco into the chili, don’t place all of our money on one horse or press the petal to the metal just because the speedometer says we can. Most of us, most of the time, live our lives within the bounds of moderation and are better off for it. I have every confidence, that after hanging a right eight years ago, Americans can safely make this little left turn toward a pronounced healthcare reform guaranteeing everyone affordable quality coverage without waking up to find ourselves on a non-stop train to Animal Farm.

Dupont Circle

It seems kind of kooky, but I have lots of fond memories of Dupont Circle.  My friend Niki and I, who were shopaholics even at the tender age of ten and eleven, loved to go to “Nicely Nicely,” a little shop with just the kinds of pretty trinkets and colorful shnick-shnack an eleven year old girl can embellish her fantasy with.  I would smuggle this wonderful world out of the store by purchasing the tiniest, and cheapest item I could find.  At home this small and insignificant purchase would swell and release its magic, transporting that entire store into my otherwise uninspiring room.  The magic never lasted very long, so we made frequent trips to Dupont Circle, or to Georgetown, which also had many such shops.

The middle school (6th thru 8th grade) I went to was on the other, better, side of NW DC, and to get there, I had to take the #42 bus down to Dupont Circle and transfer to the D2 bus. On the return tour, the bus stop for the #42 was right in front of Kramer Books and Afterwards.  Obviously a book store, but it was also a cafe, restaurant.  If I hadn’t already spent my piteous allowance at the penny candy store across from the school, I sometimes could afford to buy an ice cream at Kramers.  Mostly, though, we liked flipping through the picture books and magazines (especially in the Sex and Marriage section), the smell of coffee, the clatter of plates and glasses, the swish of the waiter’s apron as they passed by with delicious looking treats on their tray.  Sometimes we even caught a later bus, just so we could stay longer.  This was when I first knew what I wanted to be when I grew up: someone who can afford to go to breakfast at a cafe just like Kramers, drink coffee and talk all morning long!

I haven’ t a clue if it is still true, but back then Dupont Circle had the Metro stop with the longest escalator down to the underground subway, and it was at the top of this escalator that two historical moments in my life converged.  My first and only blind date ever, and the loss of my... gullibility (ok, partial loss, to the joy of my children, I’m still pretty gullible).  

The blind date wasn’t humiliating, but it was no winner either.  I had been to Europe twice at that point in my mid 20’s, mostly in England and Germany, but also doing my own version of the summer Euro-rail tour.  I never attempted to hit every major city between Stockholm and Rome, but instead visited friends in different countries and stayed with them for longer periods of time, getting the feel for life in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, etc.  The blind date was set up by my college roommate and was the brother of her best friend, who studied German and apparently also had a “thing” for all things German.  He (name long gone) had invited me to see a German movie, with subtitles, playing at the Goethe Institute on 19th, I think, just behind Kramers somewhere.  The movie was a bomb. Some advent-guard 60’s Psycho movie that seemed more like a recording of someone’s bad dream than any real artwork, but no harm done, he and it were quickly forgotten.

What I didn’t forget so quickly, was what happened while I was looking for this person I had never seen before at our meeting spot at the entrance of the Dupont Circle Metro station.  Since I wasn’t charging past like the other commuters, I was easy prey for the young pawn who was being payed to pass out flyers.  It was a glossy, designer flyer, eye catching and trust inducing with a picture of the sweetest old women you’ve ever seen.  On it were several points simply explaining why I should vote against the proposal to introduce deposit bottles in DC.  I wish I could remember all of the silly points on this otherwise very serious looking pamphlet, but I can only remember the tear wrenching claim that frail old ladies, like the one pictured, would have to carry those heavy deposit bottles back to the store, and we couldn’t be so heartless as to impose such a hardship on the elderly.  

And that was it! My moment of awakening:  the world is evil and full of liars, and even in broad day light at Dupont Circle, you had to be on your toes or someone was going to try and pull the wool over your eyes.  Growing up in Adams Morgan, I knew about being on my toes and what dangers were lurking in the neighborhood, but not until that day did I understand that even little old ladies and white people in nice suits would take me for bad, if I let them!  The really sad part is, that if I hadn’t spent over a year in Europe, witnessing first hand what a perfectly normal part of society the concept of deposit bottles are, I probably would have fallen for the glossy lies on that flier!

I haven’t thought about that day in a long time, and probably would have forgotten about the blind date altogether, if it hadn’t been for the recent debate and propaganda campaign against Nationalized Health care.  Until that day at Dupont Circle, I had assumed that “propaganda” was something the Russians did, a Russian word even, which we don’t need in our vocabulary, because Americans tell the truth!  But hearing of the recent parade of videos depicting Canadians dissatisfied with their health care, I can almost feel that glossy printed page in my hand, and I am on my guard.  Again, I think I would myself be easily duped (it all sounds so convincing and compassionate), if it wasn’t for my own experience these last 17 years of living overseas with “no worries” health care, and the testimony of the same from many, many others I know in countries with Health Care systems superior to that of the States.  It seems like a no-brainer to me, but I guess there are a lot of people who are still falling for the glossy fliers and biased advertising.  I can live without deposit bottles, after all, you do have to carry them back to the store, but I can’t live without health insurance, not in todays world of high medical costs.  What will it take to get people to stop being so gullible?!

Here are a few links to what I believe is real information about Canadian health care.  Please ignore the first paragraph of the first link, she wigs out on Republicans.  I know that is rot, but the following points she makes are good ones I thinks.  I had a third link on here, but there was really only one sentence about the survey of Canadians which found that 91% are happy with their health care.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/francis/archive/2009/05/12/health-care-lies-about-canda.aspx

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/mythbusting-canadian-health-care-part-i

Bad Liberal Europe

The following is a response to a posting on facebook : Understanding the heart of Conservitism by Graham Dennis.

Hi there, it is me writing over here in "liberal Europe!" I can't quite share your enthusiasm about this piece by Graham Dennis. I've been living outside the states for 17 years now (not including the year in 88') and for most of that time in Europe (including England, Germany and Sweden). And tho I must admit, that there are sooo many things that I have pulled my hair out about as a Christian and an American, I did find myself needing to come to Europe's defense (wow, this is a first!) while reading this. The most striking incongruence is the statement he reiterates in point 4 (having said the same in point 2). about universal health care. "Once a government run health care system is put in place, the ideological promise of equal care... becomes impossible to deliver on. It becomes a “noble lie." First of all, not all European countries have a governmental health care. Germany does not. The health care systems and policies vary significantly from country to country. Second, these countries with a comprehensive health care management may not meet a perfect egalitarian record of treatment for all classes, races etc, but people are getting the care they need...I have never heard of ANYONE not being treated for an illness, not being able to afford medicine, being turned away because they are not insured or not being able to care for their children. Having experienced first hand the contrast of not being able to afford medical treatment because I was not covered to that of not having to worry about it AT ALL, I cannot express enough the importance of this issue to national politics. So I might not always get a private room in a hospital, but at least I get a room. There is so much propaganda out there about the inequality, bad service, lack of individual choice of doctors, etc, etc in “European” health care, which is simply not true. What is true is that people are not having to sell their homes to pay for cancer treatment, nor are they prematurely released from the hospital and left helpless. The “Europeans” I know gasp at the horror stories that come out of the states. And no one would want to trade!! On this issue, the States should exercise humility and take notes. Then it should do what it is good at: stealing an idea (like pizza or Tacos) from another country and making it even better!!  

It is also ill-advised to lump all of Europe (and I assume Scandinavia and Great Britain and Canada?) into one bag. Each of these countries has answered the healthcare issue differently, and of course struggles to overcome or counter the pitfalls or draw backs inherent within their own system, which, I agree, are partially the result of unlimited availability and an increasingly geriatric population. Yes, Germany has a declining national birthrate, but that is certainly not true of every European country. My husband just called over to me that he recently read, that in fact, the french are quite out doing us here! (France has a birthrate of 2,1 % to germany 1,34 %) Not to mention the countries that your brother also named, Poland, Ireland, Spain. (and wouldn't the numbers in the states look as dismal if it weren't for the large hispanic and immigrant population?) And, yes, this too puts a strain on our health care system (and would do us in a lot sooner if it weren’t for our own immigrant population).  

But also to fault for the growing burden of health care, are the extremely high costs of more advanced diagnostic and treatment technologies. I have had 3 MRT’s in the last half year...that might not have been possible even 10 years ago. So of course that brings with it enormous ethical questions: how much care and for whom? While I am getting 3 MRT’s here at an astronomical cost, young children are dying of illnesses in Africa which could be treated for a few dollars. In addition, the prenatal care, hospital stay (5-10 days), and required postnatal care (including postnatal house visits by the midwives) covered by German insurance companies are costs which fall away with a declining birthrate. Anyway, I think it is an over-simplification to say that “European health care needs have derived largely from it being a “stagnating population.”  

Surely France and Germany loose many of their top experts abroad. However, this is occurring across the board and is not a phenomena limited to medical researchers. Sometime ago Time ran an article just on this subject. The basic tenor of the article was that most brilliant researchers in Europe get bogged down in bureaucracies, which slow up funding, suffocate “free thinking” and can douse the motivation of even the most determined minds. Whether in sports, astronomy, physics, archeology, engineering, theater, supermodels, even Cornelia Funke moved to California!! But not until she could afford to pay her hospital bills herself! No, having lived here in Germany almost as long as I have lived in the states, I have experienced first hand the mind set which can and does again and again stifle creative, innovative and adventuresome pursuits. I think I can safely say, it is not a result of universal health care, nor necessarily the social conscience that gave rise to it, nor strictly of Liberal Humanistic thought. It is much, much too easy to duck our own social-political responsibility to care for our neighbor and dismiss those, who are in some respects doing a better job of it than we are, by nailing them in a coffin with this label on it.  

I can’t really follow the logic in his argumentation contrasting the “intellectuals in Europe” who were “smitten with the path of revolution” with “our founders deep and prudent reflection upon the limits of the political,” Our founders were revolutionists!! They also understood the limits of “religion” and sought to ensure that this sword could in future not so easily be wielded as an instrument of intimidation and domination. Granted, they seemed to have more successfully “let out the bath water, while retaining the baby” by removing the administration of religious profession and practice from the Governmental body, but keeping it as a matter of personal and communal profession and practice. The “French” revolutionaries seemed to be sick of the whole dirty lot of it, and could no longer make the distinction between religious tyranny and the kingdom of God. But who can fault them for it? They now must live with the dirty bath water of their own making. And for trying to get them to take the baby back? I think America has long since sullied her own diapers and lost any position of moral authority it may have at any point had.  

“Part of the limitation of the city of man is that it cannot eradicate the natural selfishness of man. To create an ideological place-holder for common interest (the state or the government) is to assume something about the state that I don’t assume. This is what scares me about Obama. He, like the French and many other Europeans, doesn’t understand how self-interest works vis-à-vis the city of man. It’s not that self-interest should be turned into a religious principle, but rather than the state herself is incapable or eradicating it. Only the city of God can perfectly eradicate self-interest. This creates the need for a check upon the government (the principle established by our founders). That check is, in part, self-interest. The Pollyanna hope that it could be eradicated by the “common interest” of the state, is a very French (humanist), progressive European political ideal. I think it is extremely dangerous.”

I am sorry, but i find this quote to be... completely nonsensical. ...”but rather the state herself is incapable of eradicating Self-interest.“ But isn’t that exactly what conservative Christians want, when they clamor for Government to legislate pro traditional family values, against abortion, gay marriage, etc, etc.? From my view over here, it seems like there are a lot of very loud conservatives, who believe just that; that the state can eradicate the self-interest of mothers choosing a “better” life over the life of their child, and of Gays choosing a same sex partner instead of a fruitful heterosexual one. And isn’t that exactly what Obama has been saying? “There are limits to how the State can prohibit our Self-interest choices? Especially in those areas, which are extremely difficult to enforce. I think it is precisely the false “hope” of the conservative base in state legislation, which has paralyzed and preoccupied them, keeping them from exploring more creative and effective ways of bearing witness to the sanctity of life. Obama has again and again maintained that he will focus on those areas where State not only has an obligation to litigate, but also a fighting chance at success in its implementation. 

And “(Obama), like the French and many other Europeans, doesn’t know how self-interest works vis a vis the city of man.” Is this for real???? I don’t think there is a person alive in the developed countries, who doesn’t know how self interest works!! There is a much shorter term for “self-interest vis a vis the city of man”; it’s called capitalism! And because America has proven to be the heavy weight in all things capitalistic, honing its “self-interest” skills to a sharp edge, does not automatically send all of Europe to the far corner of socialism. If America has been good at exporting any values at all on the greater community, especially the European neighborhood, than it is the value of Capitalistic self-Interest. And hasn’t that been the mantra of republicans since yea and yea, that any perceived economic or social slack in the country be met with more self-interest? I am sure it is not the objective of any candidate to “eradicate self-interest.” My suspicion is that the republicans want to continue to fan the self-interest flame much in the strain of Adam Smith, who proposed that the best result comes from everyone in the group doing what is best for himself (which America as a case study has proven does not work for a gross majority of the country or for the larger community of which America is also a part). Nash’s mathematically substantiated theory of governing dynamics has overthrown Smith’s, however, proposing that the best result will come by everyone doing what is best for himself AND for the group (or participants in the group). And isn’t that exactly what Jesus told us to do? “Love your neighbor AS yourself”? We are not to love our neighbor to the neglect and denial of self interest nor are we to love ourselves to the exclusion of our neighbor. May I suggest that the former smacks of the communist ideal and the latter of the renegade capitalist ideal? I think each country in Europe has tried in its own way, with its own resources to find this equilibrium in its governing capacity, to lesser or greater success.  

“Lastly, this tendency to think of the state as the “family” has also led to a profound denigration of the family. Why? Because the family is suspiciously viewed as an arena of “private interest.” Normalizing people to the infrastructure of the state, then, becomes one of the central goals of liberal humanism. This is why public schooling is so important.” I wish i could just let this slide by, because it is late and I have already spent way too long on this, but the oversimplification just nags at me. I am wondering which European country he is referring to? Yes, we are constantly trying to defend the value and sanctity of the family (and not just the cell family, but the extended family as well) and feel the tug and pull in so many directions to abandon it. But your brother is shooting at the wrong enemy, or indeed aiming too high. I do not believe that there is a liberal humanistic conspiracy to rot out the “private interest” of the family, at least not here in Germany. I do believe that the state more often than not cooperates with the forces at work in the world, which undermine the strengths of the family, but those forces are even more base than liberal humanism.  

I believe this force to be as ancient as history itself, and to be the only real counter philosophy that Jesus ever named (by the way, to put Jesus in a list of conservatives is silly; Jesus took pitches from both sides of the field and hit all the balls out of the park. Didn’t he say something like, “a good teacher uses both old and new stuff” (ok, i can’t find the quote right now, but it is really one of my favorites). A shorter verse that i am able to remember (not one of my favorites): “You cannot serve both God and Mammon.” Consumerism, the number one leading religion in our world. It infiltrates any philosophical, political or religious system and morphs it into an instrument of consumerism. Consumerism (Mammon) can make a currency out of anything. So a communist country, with the high ideals to pursue the good of the community, quickly becomes a country of consumerists who use Communism as a commodity to pursue self interest. And a christian country (group, church) with the high ideals to love God and their neighbor as themselves, quickly becomes a consumerist country using their religiosity, religious symbols and piety to pursue personal gain.  

It’s an old story, dating back long before the French revolution. The church got their first and only spanking in the book of Acts for this very thing. Ananias and Saphira were using the pious, “selfless” act of selling their home and “giving” to the community as a commodity, as a means of “gaining” something: the regard of the community. They were trying to “sell” themselves to the church. So whatever one means exactly by throwing around the term “liberal humanism,” have no fear, I am sure, this threatening philosophy has long been morphed away into our ancient enemy, much like the bad guy in The Matrix. And whatever is left of it in Europe is being rapidly shoved aside by capitalism. I would suggest then that we recognize our true enemy and stick to fighting him at our own address. (Didn’t Jesus say something like that, about sticks and stones...ah, splinters and beams!). After all, america has the staggering murder count: America uses most of the worlds resources; America has citizens living in 3rd world squaller, obesity, higher infant mortality rates, by far more people in prisons, a disreputable primary and secondary education system, and if I understood Graham correctly, it sounds like America (not the liberal humanists) has the most liberal abortion laws. Way to go for the sobering effects of self-interest. just wanting to keep the straw men from the table, lee