Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Sometimes I feel like a broken record

I used to have a blog that was pretty active, I liked it, others did not. I believe I will re-post a few things from that little ditty...if'n you don't mind. So lets go back to the waning years of the Bush II presidency.

Its sort of ironic given the HC act and the SCOTUS' rulings on corporate identity eh?

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

What you got to do is run it like a business...
BULLSHIT!

I believe that Corporations have way to much power in the United States. We have GRANTED them the status of an individual in the eyes of the law and somehow it has become ingrained in the American psyche that its organic. We actually have people that think it is a good thing.

Its not. The corporatization of everything is immoral and un-American. For an entity that has nothing but the best interests of its shareholders to hold sway in health care, campaign finance, public safety, social program or public education is just wrong. The very people that are supposed to be protected in these sectors are losing out. A perfect example of the failure of corporations can be found in the healthcare industry.

In healthcare, we have amazing advances in lifesaving technology, but we have an entire underclass that does not have access to these miracles. Should executives of non-profits be paid multi-millions AND be the only ones with access to the latest and greatest? NO!

No insurance? Go to the emergency room. Its closed? Well they couldn't keep it open - they wanted to make their wall-street targets. .

Cost savings by privatization are short lived and the ultimate responsibility for the care of patient becomes vested in a corporation. Back to the shareholders best interest, not only that, I believe that we are flirting with the unconstitutional - "provide for the common welfare" anyone? Healthcare is for the good of society, profit motives should not be the first quantifier for healthcare.

Corporations are good at delivering oil, televisions or telecom, all industries that have products that we can hold and sell and won't make decisions that can kill us if the stockholders are unhappy with their profits.

It does not work for healthcare because healthcare is not a right or a privilege, it is a basic service that should driven by concern for the patient not by economics. Yes, people die, yes not everyone needs or should get a new lung, but everyone should be able to get their appendix out and a leg set by someone besides frontier dave. (Don't give me that shit about R&D - We all know that someone will step in and become the next Jonas Salk) We should not have to worry about catching some pandemic flu in an overcrowded hospital because the BOD decided that the sister hospital down the road duplicated services and was not making enough money and needs to be closed down. We should ALL have access to affordable, safe health services.

The time has come to once again check the power of the corporation in the US. For the good of the country needs to be placed ahead of profit:
"The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our
civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure
of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble
than mere monetary profit."

FDR first Inaugural Address MARCH 4, 1933

Are we ready to do it again?

Posting is for suckers.