American healthcare reform and Autoimmunity

The on-going outrage of American public (mostly Republicans) against the recent healthcare reform is fascinating to me. It reminds me of a  medical condition called Autoimmunity where the body attacks and destroys itself from within.

The very same middle-class Americans who are in the most dire need for this reform, (one study shows 45,000 Americans die every year partly due to lack of health insurance), have been brainwashed into thinking that this is somehow "bad" for them. I saw on a doctor friend's facebook status a while ago that a lady patient of hers who had gone bankrupt for paying for her healthcare after losing her insurance was STILL against the healthcare reform!  The reform which makes a point to help people in exactly the situation like hers.

Classic three "arguments" that are put against the reform:

1) It'll put a beaurocrat between me and my doctor!

There is already a beaurocrat between you and the doctor- your private insurance company.  The only difference would be, with the reform, you would have at least some level of influence since government, at the end of the day, is accountable to the public.  Privately owned companies are only accountable to the Wall Street.

2) It'll turn us into a Socialist country!

From your complete judicial system, to law and enforcement, to military - they are already "socialized" institutions.   You wouldn't even dream (I hope) about putting these institutions that are in-charge of your physical-care, in the hands of private companies. But somehow, you think the same private companies should be the only in-charge of your health-care??

3) It'll drive private insurance companies out of business in the long run!

And I should care, because?  Taking more from people + giving back less, while keeping the difference as profit is a fine business model for car/home insurance companies, but not when comes to human life.  It is sacred, unless you disagree?  So if we consider human life to be a lot more than a mere commodity like a car/house etc., then how could we treat them all the same?

As history has shown, current private health insurance for-profit business model is neither economical nor moral, as Wendell Potter, former Vice President of Corporate Communications for the CIGNA corporation, discusses. Private health insurance deserves to go out of business ASAP.  This is not to be confused with the pharmaceutical companies, whose sole incentive to R&D is profit, which make sense.  They are creating tangible products to save life, rather than just bartering it.

Healthcare, is a right, especially in a civilized society, just as justice and physical security is.  It's not a privilege or a business.  So if there is anything outrageous about the healthcare reform, it's that it's taken so long for Americans to take it seriously.

Given how weak the anti-reform 'arguments' are, it shows no matter how technologically advanced or well-educated we become, propaganda will remain a force to reckon with.

A must-watch racism exercise for kids (and adults)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/etc/view.html

Obama, as the president of the US, was recently called a liar on national TV by senator Joe Wilson , while Kanya West recently sabotaged Taylor Swift's MTV video award speech .

Racism is probably the most abundant -ism in the world today, and this Frontline video does a marvelous job exploring it.

"This is one of the most requested programs in FRONTLINE's history. It is about an Iowa schoolteacher [Jane Elliott] who, the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in 1968, gave her third-grade students a first-hand experience in the meaning of discrimination. This is the story of what she taught the children, and the impact that lesson had on their lives. "

Ms. Elliott's experiment lead the children to discriminate against each other based on their brown and blue eye color and then analyzed their reaction.  The experiment was such a success, that it was adopted by various business, government and correctional institutions, where adults were subjected to similar experiments.

A very interesting bit about the kids' experiment was that a Yale research team found consistent long-term better  academic performance among the kids after the experiment!

It's a 46 minute 5-part video, worth watching every minute of it.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/etc/view.html

Sting supporting the 3 Million+ Pakistani refugees in dire need!

Sting dedicated this touching song called "Fragile" to the helpless 3 million Internally Displaced People (IDP) from Swat, Pakistan.  He did this in collaboration with his friend Salman Ahmad from Junoon.

Background: Swati IDPs are a result of a military campaign that Pakistani military launched against Talibans in April '09 at US's behest.  The basic sustenance for these people was farming, which was essentially completely destroyed by the time the fighting ended in July 2009.

One example of problems facing the IDPs: http://www.chowrangi.com/swat-idp-camp-uprooted-in-islamabad.html

A heartening story of a little girl and his family as IDPs: http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/10/10/world/1247465107008/a-schoolgirls-odyssey.html 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHYmL48ZVxE

Links mentioned by Sting:

http://www.ssgwi.org/index.html

http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/page?page=49e487016

Lyrics to the song "Fragile":

If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay
Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime's argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are
How fragile we are how fragile we are

Werd up! @ Obama's speech

Obama's address to the Joint Session of Congress on 09/09/09.

The last video at the bottom: http://tinyurl.com/healthyObama

Nice line: "I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last".

Hope healthcare, like justice and physical security, is finally regarded as a right than a privilege in this country.