NP: Happy Easter

[Michael Bailey]

Ian Livingston wrote:
> I have never had health insurance and I plan never to pay for a
> service I will not use. When medicine comes out of the dark ages of
> capitalism, it may be possible I'd consider going in to have a doctor
> confirm something I already know, but I still wouldn't let 'em cut me
> open. Never trust a man waving a knife at you.

pretty much my sentiments.
That said, when I had a bad cough quite a few years ago, I went to a
doctor who advertised in the Yellow Pages as a naturopath.  He listened
to my lungs and said, You've got walking pneumonia.
gave me a shot of penicillin and a packet of pills.
They worked, though I was expecting something completely different,

I have employer health care (and pay a chunk of money)
but I go preferentially to an osteopath and pay out of pocket.
I'm also planning to visit a homeopath in the not too distant future,
partly for research (the several Pynchon mentions), but also because
what I've read
intrigues me.
When I was seeing a psychiatrist, I paid cash too.  I didn't really
want to involve
my employer's health plan in that, and I felt I got more out of the
therapy that way.

But I've been fortunate, in the main, not to have disastrous illnesses.
I'd probably not reject a surgeon if faced with traumatic injury, for instance.
And my wife's hospital stays for chronic mental disturbance (_Adventures
in Neuropathy_ as the imaginary text cited in AtD called it) would have
bankrupted us many times over by now without insurance coverage.

Ethically, isn't it repugnant to have people's misery be a profit center?
And Aesthetically, the picture of a doctor who's into getting rich is much less
pleasing than one of a doctor whose choice of profession stemmed from wanting
to help people?  Which is the sector, or personality type,
that you'd rather have your health professional drawn from?

Not to mention the insurance companies, whose incentives are basically
opposite to that of patient interests.

The health bill does do some things about that, and some form of it is likely
to stick even through regime change - and perhaps this moderate bill will
help avoid cataclysmic regime change as we move on into further
centrist triumphs
and the tea partiers further marginalize themselves...





 And drugs? No thanks!
> Had my share, know what they do. Comes my time, soon enough, I want a
> clear mind. I am no stranger to pain, I can live with it and, time
> comes, die with it. There are enough people on the planet that I will
> be missed only by a few, who, too, will soon enough pass into the
> fabled vacuum of history. If the government wants to tax somebody to
> pay for health care, that tax should be on families who choose to have
> more than two children. One, even better. Life is important, it should
> be cherished, lived. It is not something we can for long greedily
> claim as our own. We are participants, not owners. Visitors. Those
> species we in our self-serving notions of superiority daily wipe out
> of existence, or torture to develop products to increase our
> overweening grasp on the ecosphere, have every "right to life" we
> have.....Put down the keyboard, Igor. Step away from the rant..... If
> folks want to support the medical cartels, it's their choice, same as
> with all the other ones.
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 4, 2010 at 12:16 PM,  <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>> Baby steps in the right direction would be great if the insurance industry didn't have batteries of lawyers devoted to tripping the baby.  There's no law that the insurance companies can't find massive loopholes in.  Six-month waiting periods for the terminally ill.  Special coverage policies for the newly insured that give them the identical coverage as regular policy owners - except reimbursing doctors at a much lower rate so that no doctors will treat these new patients.  Etc., etc.  I also had Empire Blue Cross insurance when 10 years ago, I had several hospitalizations which the insurance refused to cover.  I was forced to go bankrupt.
>>
>> Laura
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>>>From: Henry Musikar <scuffling at gmail.com>
>>>Sent: Apr 4, 2010 11:35 AM
>>>To: 'Pynchon Liste' <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>>Subject: RE: NP: Happy Easter
>>>
>>>Without the watering down of the bill, it wouldn't have passed, fewer people would have insurance, and there would be absolutely no regulation.  Aren't baby steps better than nothing?
>>>
>>>Henry Mu
>>>Sr. IT Analyst
>>>http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20/
>>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: Laura
>>>Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2010 11:24 AM
>>>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>>>Subject: Re: NP: Happy Easter
>>>
>>>We have Aetna insurance.  It's absolutely horrible: extremely expensive for a family of five, high copays, long lists of things they won't cover, does everything possible to prevent people from seeing doctors, bureaucratic to the extreme.  And now we're stuck with it, thanks to those Democratic whores who presided over one of the most disgraceful sellouts in recent memory.
>>>
>>>Uh, and Happy Easter to you.
>>>
>>>Laura
>>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>>From: Henry Musikar
>>>>
>>>>And a Happy, healthcared year!
>>>>
>>>>http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=591754869&k=5VD23Z643T21VFCDUC2VPVVSP3AF3Y&oid=1370419295051
>>>>
>>>>Henry Mu
>>>>Sr. IT Analyst
>>>>http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20/
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> "liber enim librum aperit."
>