Hodgepodge catch-up post July 28, 2009
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Civics, Gibberish, Healthcare, Life, Media, New Media, Superfluous musings, Technology.add a comment
Life has definitely been a whirlwind in the past few months. After a layoff, several long weeks of semi-disheartened job searching, grandmother traveling back to Europe, sister’s graduation, new job (which was a surprise and has become a great learning experience), and lots of reconnections with friends, one moving wedding, and finally an apartment selection (and one more wedding prep), I have decided I’ll never “find” time to resume blogging. I had even taken to sending myself e-mails from my new smart phone (wow, never had a pocket-sized computer that makes phone calls before; they’re truly come along way, despite all the criticism) during my long commute via ferry – all with subject line “blog” and a sentence or two on a topic that was capitalizing my attention that day. Well, I won’t get around to developing full blog posts out of each e-mail, so here’s a hodgepodge list, just to get it out there and hopefully start blogging somewhat regularly again:
Celebrity deaths – what do they tell us? – I thought about this when news about Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Billy Mays, Walter Cronkite (and I’m sure I’m forgetting someone) hit within a few short days of each other. Beyond the stories I was reading about online journalism, mobile technology, etc. and how these worldwide (in case of MJ) news bits profliferated many new technologies, I was thinking that a lot of these folks were fairly young and succumbed to either cancer, heart disease, or drugs (prescrption and otherwise) – worth pondering what these trends say about U.S. healthcare issues in light of the healthcare reform debate currently playing out in government.
The world as a community – I’m not sure what I was thinking exactly here, but in that e-mail I’ve written: “Obama approach – the global community organizer? Will that work?” Pretty cool to think about how global of a community we truly are – global warming, global economic crisis, global flu epidemic (that spread lightning fast), global mourning of Michael Jackson, etc. If anything, the United States is lucky to have so global of a leader again (I think the last to be revered abroad was Bill Clinton).
Why are we so afraid of government meddling – This was a thought brought about by the healthcare reform debates I kept hearing on NPR on my commute to and from work. To quote myself again from that e-mail: “Isn’t that the point of representative government? If they really mean it, why aren’t (Republican) politicians declining their government health plans & buying their own – after all that is the ultimate free market.” No need to elaborate here, I think (except to reiterate how irritated I am by blatant and not unintentional hypocrisy).
Reaction to NPR healthcare story on All Things Considered (July 1) – “Gov $ already going more & more to healthcare & decisions are out of patients’ hands b/c of insurance rules & coverage patterns, not b/c of gov bureucrats… & it’s much costlier often than just treating…” – basically what I always take issue with when Republican (and some Blue Dog Democrats) talk about the danger of having the government make healthcare decisions for you instead of that being up to you and your doctor. Hah! Who makes those decisions now? Insurance companies. They must know better than the government. (And don’t even get me started on the whole argument of whether the government will encroach that much into the decisions anyway.)
Media splinters – As a PR professional, I started in fall 2006 targeting “top tier” publications; today, for the best impact, we target “niche” publications – audiences have splintered into specialized interests thanks to the bloggosphere, other new media on the Internet, a-la-carte news and opinion even on cable news TV networks. It took something like MJ’s death to bring the whole world’s attention to one story, like a lazer beam.
Are we all spoiled consumers? – “Do we expect too much from our technology, too fast? Can’t help but wonder, reading all the new smart phone reviews (partial to Palm Pre – small keyboard actually a + for me, but would like better/more solid hardware & more apps..)”
The return of yard and garage sales – Is this a sign of the (tough economic) times? I can’t remember when was the last time I saw a sign for a garage sale and they were everywhere in the late 1990s when my family first moved to the United States. All of a sudden this summer they’re everywhere again.
Confused and disappointed October 15, 2008
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Elections 2008, Healthcare.1 comment so far
I’ve been meaning to look at the AMA’s healthcare proposal for a while now… really every time I see their TV ad. So, I finally did. And I’m confused and disappointed. There aren’t many details included and sadly it reads to me like a vaugely disguised spin-off of the McCain health plan. I guess I should not be surprised, after all it makes sense that the AMA has a stake in the insurance companies’ well-being. Perhaps I don’t understand all of the intricacies of the relationship (vicious cycle, but it seems to me that malpractice lawsuits drive the need for doctors to get malpractice insurance, which drives business into the insurance companies’ doors), but reading the main points of their plan, it certainly hints at partiality.
There are many things that worry me about McCain’s plan especially – the tax credit is not going to begin to cover the actual costs of obtaining your own insurance; cross-state insurance shopping will encourage insurance companies to gravitate to the states with the least regulation allowing them to exempt more people for pre-existing conditions, etc.; it will lure healthy, young people to shop around for a cheap deal because insurance companies will give them better terms, but that exodus will leave all the sick and older people with employer-based plans that (as a result of the healthy people leaving) will face skyrocketing premiums; another side-effect will be a strain on employers to front even more expensive healthcare costs for the ailing employees who can’t afford to go out and purchase a plan on their own for anything near the $5,000 tax cut (per family, not per person, by the way) (oh, and talk about punishing companies and forcing them to outsource jobs to Canada because of healthcare costs, not to India or China because of labor costs); and I can’t comprehend how McCain who persists “why raise anyone’s taxes?” does just that in his health plan – unprecedented, he’s going to tax healthcare benefits as income. Yes, I know I’m rambling, but I have a hard time wrapping my mind around his plan. Not to say Obama’s plan is perfect, but it is by far the superior one.
I highly recommend reading the primary sources, though:
And check out this earlier blog entry where I linked to an interview with a health and policy expert who compared McCain and Obama’s plans.
Healthcare: McCain vs. Obama August 27, 2008
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Elections 2008, Healthcare.1 comment so far
The McCain and Obama healthcare plans are starkly different. Here is an NPR program that helps dig into the details and explains what each plan would do for people, employers, and health insurance companies. The interviewee, Jonathan Oberlander, has authored an article in The New England Journal of Medicine detailing the two plans.
