healthcare

This post was inspired by a diary by Kirk. Its a good one, please go read it. Although I initially started this talking about farms, its obvious that so much more is involved. This is a long and slightly meandering post and only begins to scratch the surface of the crisis that faces our farmers, and rural America. I hope you enjoy.

Cross posted from The Progressive Pulse.
Ever since the ascendancy of conservatism and the election of Ronald Reagan we have been told that government is the problem and the free-market is the solution. If nothing else, the Bush Administration has turned that paradigm on it’s head. Bush campaigned for small government, but what he delivered was bad governance. I suppose it was inevitable that if you hold the idea of governing in contempt, you will govern poorly.

This “government bad, free-market good” mindset must change if we are to make any progress regarding the woeful state of healthcare. Two stories in the news last week perfectly illustrated the perils inherent in our free-market healthcare system.

When the City of Salisbury comes to mind, lots of people think of our Senior Senator, who claims to be from that quaint little town, just as she claims to be from North Carolina. Milking our state for all it's worth, Elizabeth Dole has parlayed the illusion of residency for a career of personal gain and power. One of the ultimate insiders in the DC establishment, Dole seems to care little about her hometown, and even less about her home state.

But today readers all around the world are getting another view of Salisbury, through the eyes of a different woman, courtesy of the New York Times.

SALISBURY, N.C. — Vicki H. Readling vividly remembers the start of 2006.“Everybody was saying, ‘Happy new year,’ ” Ms. Readling recalled. “But I remember going straight to bed and lying down scared to death because I knew that at that very minute, after midnight, I was without insurance. I was kissing away a bad year of cancer. But I was getting ready to open up to a door of hell.” Ms. Readling, a 50-year-old real estate agent, is one of nearly 47 million people in America with no health insurance.

We need some activists to lend support to this issue in this legislative season.
I hope BlueNC bloggers will lend a hand.

I just read this heartbreaking article in Newsweek about veteran care (or lack thereof) by the Veterans Administration. As the former wife of a Vietnam veteran, I know the difficulty he went through when trying to obtain benefits; he was told that he was classified as a "peacetime" veteran because he served in the U.S. Navy on a destroyer, even though he saw plenty of combat. I'm hoping that presidential candidates like mine will make this a topic at the forefront of their campaigns; in the meantime, I urge you to send this link with a note to your senator and representative demanding immediate action on this issue if they expect your vote the next time around. That's what "Support the Troops" REALLY means!

Click here for the article in Newsweek.