Can we not see the forest for the trees?!? 

The one left standing will be the One. 

Who is left?  Ron, Mitt, and Jeb. {Let's not forget, there's another Bush in the forest.}

There can be only ONE!!!

It's really an intersting dynamic for me, how I read a post and it prompts another, and many times my post is received better then the posts that originate without the influence of others.  But we shall see.  My post today was prompted by this one here,

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/noblecommentdecider/2009/07/gun-toting-nra-supporter-disar.php?ref=reccafe  One good post deserves another.

It occured to me that this phrase, medical tourism, is so quaint that it has gone virtually unmentioned until today.  It came about because one of these "tourists" brought a gun with him for protection when he went to India to get a hip replacement.  He brought a gun to India!!!  Clearly this fool has lost the perspective that most human beings on this planet abhor weapons.  Yes, we read about a terrorist incident in India and it scares us, but there are a billion unarmed people there we do not mention.  So all we know about India is this one incident.  We need to take the time to know more about India then that this incident occurred.  Seriously, there's more to life then running terrified of shadows hiding a weapon just in case.  But that issue is for the above-referenced post.  I recommend you read that too.  This post is about medical tourism.

Medical tourism sounds so adventurous and pleasant.  It suggests an exploration of a foreign land and gathering a trinket to help us later to remember the trip.  Going to India one might think of bringing home a plastic Taj Mahal, or a hand carved tiger.  One might also think of the great meals: curries; tandoori chickens: and lhassis.  Not to mention the weather.  I hear it gets pretty hot in some places.  Then there are all the cultural influences to experience seeing people in their native clothes, unless they caught the American bug of course and wear jeans and a T-shirt.  {Oh, how rich we are as a culture.  A T-shirt and jeans, and perhaps a baseball cap.  No, I don't think people come to the US to experience our culture.  Frankly, it seems they enjoy our seemingly endless nature, particularly attractive to Europeans who have so little left.}

A real expression for these travelling people might be more serious.  How about medical refugees?  Financially oppressed people who could not bear the outrageous costs of our medical system.   It might suggest other experiences then the ones above-mentioned.  For instance, there is no exploration of the land, there is a visit to a hospital to explore it's barren hallways filled with gurneys, wheelchairs, and the infirm.  Great meals?  Hospital food, you mean?  Oh, the only time hospital food motivates people to move is motivating them to leave the hospital, or to smuggle in something from outside.  As for the weather, the hospital probably has a climate-controlled environment.  It will probably feel a lot like hospitals here, except that sucking sound is less severe around our wallets, or purses.  Finally, the clothes.  There is nothing ethnic to a hospital gown.  The flap at the back is a stark reminder of the frailty of our humanity.  For as revealing as those gowns may be, there is nothing seductive about them.  It's quite the opposite really.  A souvenir, a trinket?  It's an artificial hip.

So let's get real.  There are no medical tourists, only medical refugees, and the UN is not going to do anything about them.  It is up to us, because evidently, the politiciamns are not about to do anything about them either.  The practice of medical refugees is becoming quite common, but there are no real numbers to quantify how prevalent this has become.  What would the medical industry do if they knew how many dollars were going elsewhere?  {How I loathe the fact that we have come to accept that our health has become a commodity.}   Well, if Bush were in charge he would put a stop to it, the same way he prevented people from getting prescriptions filled in Canada.

It's really disappointing that this nation appears so ignorant of the battle taking place in the halls of Congress as I write this.  We have a chance to radically transform our healthcare system.  We have several examples of vibrant industrialized countries that have single-payer systems.  We are talking about our future, the personal future of each and every one of us, as we age and endure our diminished vitality.  We will all want to be as comfortable as we can, living as well as we can, but this present system is failing so many.  The only ones who benefit are shareholders in an industry that exploits the misfortune of people who are sick or have been injured.  We can change this.  We can do it now.  Repeat after me, YES WE CAN and don't let anyone tell you any option is off the table.  YES WE CAN.  Stop the exodus. Good healthcare begins at home.

Washington DC is a favorite place to demonstrate, but our victory regarding healthcare will happen in the streets and it needs to be the street where there is a hospital.  No, it's not because of burns and pitchfork-related injuries.  It's because it is those voices that will make the most noise, the ones leaving the hospital 

Whose voices are those?  The Doctors?  The Nurses?  The Candy-Stripers?  Well, there have certainly been some heroes from the medical community who hve raised their voices, both here on TPM and at the hearings.  They raised a raucus before Baucus.  Those men and women advocated admirably.  I thought they were a good seed for a movement.  But we are going to need a big stick and for that we will need a big tree.  I propose we plant that tree on the street by the hospitals and we water that tree with the relatives and friends of the patients who need healthcare right now!!!

For a person to raise their voice requires the passion to do so.  Some of the most clear voices we hear here on TPM are those with passion, which is not isolated to screaming.  There are other passions.  In this instance, the passion is sympathy for those who suffer.  As relatives and friends watch helplessly, their loved ones suffer in these medical centers.  Not because the providers are incompetent, though there are a few of those.  They suffer because they are sick, period.  The observers are frustrated they cannot do more, that there loved ones are not made well immediately, that there is not a pill for the problem.

These people, the relatives and friends are the best recruits, and showing them the way to enhance the care of their loved ones is something they desperately wish.  These people will bring passion to the issue of healthcare reform.  These are the people who want better healthcare right now!!! 

MiddleClassBill and I were debating healthcare a day or two ago and he wanted to emphasize that people should have a choice whether they wish to be covered or not.  It seems to me the only ones who do not want covereage are those who have millions of dollars and those who do not need healthcare, right now!!!  Although I suspect those millionaires would also prefer to have insurance when they get sick so they only have a co-pay and not the whole bill.  Afterall, they did not become millionaires paying full prices.

The only leadership on this issue right now is Howard Dean.  His Democracy For America organization gathered 400,000 signatures, but there was no media coverage.  Does the media have an agenda?  If we read TPM, we certainly have a strong suspicion they do, especially when every 3rd commericial is for some drug to cure coxafloppin, or Restless Leg Syndrome.  

We might also ask, why are there not more providers advocating change.  Well, if there is no change, how will these providers get on the list the next time insurance puts together a Preferred Provider Directory?  I suspect there is a great deal of fear in them related to speaking out, but I also suspect they might forward funds to an entity with the right model.  Might that be Democracy For America?  I'm considering that as I write this, but the thrust of my message here is that we should be at the hospitals and medical facilities recruiting people to bring their voices to the issue of healthcare reform, because they are the ones needing healthcare, right now!!!   Nothing underscores the need for healthcare reform more poignantly then the real experiences of those in a critical health situation right now!!!!!  We need those voices to be heard and we know where they are, we just need to know where to bring them.  Any ideas, TPM?  DFA is standing right now!!! so is there a need to start from scratch?

When I opened the door to leave the buildng I heard that voice, the voice of America's most famous drug-addict, Rush Limbaugh.  I was at an RV dealership, of all places, an anomoly in these dire economic times.  I was accompanying a friend who had actually just bought one, for $50,000 less then it was worth.  So I thought I would see some SUV or a Cadillac, or something like it with one of those arrogant, self-absorbed, big money types getting out of their ride.  But what did I see?  A UPS truck!!!

The sight really stopped me in my tracks.  It was a Teamster!  A guy making close to $30/hour running around for the man listening to a guy tell the nation he makes too much money and his union should be disbanded because it impedes capitalism.    I had to resist laughing at him.  He seemed so serious and determined in his work.  He was focused.  He also had an air of anger about him.  So I thoughts about this.

It's commonly held that Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the Right-Wing Bobbleheads are purveyors of anger, doling out a rage-fix to people in need of something at which to direct their feelings.  It charges their batteries.  Sometimes I believe that I listen to Left Wing radio for much the same reason, but I can see how their agenda comports with mine.  What about this UPS Driver?  Doesn't he get it?!?!?

This is where organized labor has lost the war.  Obviously the UPS Driver does not get it, that Rush is adamantly opposed to his achieving the standard of living to which the driver has become accustomed and which the driver clearly takes for granted.  Somehow the Teamster fails to see that his employer would rather not increase his wages or benefits whenever that issue arises.  His memory must not include the strike fifteen or so years ago when that exact issue provoked his union brothers to leave the job.  He's drunk the Kool-Aid that unions are socialism and socialism is evil.  It is an affront to capitalism.  He somehow also fails to realize that strike did not break the company and UPS remains profitable.

Does the Driver realize his union is a capitalist enterprise?  Does he realize being organized is how he becomes a shareholder in the organization, and that his labor IS capital?  Does he not see that the employer is organized.  There is an entire management team to evaluate how he is treated.  They work together to achieve their ends.  So why is his cooperating with his fellow Teamsters any different?  Why should every employee have to fight alone when the company is all together about scraping whatever expenses they can away from the employee?  It defies logic, but there it is.

There was another lesson I learned yesterday as well, because I had bveen brought along to drive my neighbor's car back to his house as he brought home his new RV.  I was listening to the radio station he had been listening to the last time he drove the car.  It was Michael Savage.  Mr. Savage does not discriminate.  He hates everyone.  I felt the rage this merchant of madness was selling, but it was not toward the ones he described so bitterly.  My bitterness was toward Mr. Savage.  HIs screaming like Henny Penny that the nation is falling did provoke my emotions and I am very upset people like him and Rush have an audience, but I must agree, the nation is falling.