My Sad Attempt To Take The April Challenge

Yeah, everyone in the blogging world is taking this "challenge" to post an entry every day for the month of April....
I wavered on the issue for quite some time, but figure that I might as well make a feeble attempt to (sort of) follow the herd. After all, "Peer pressure's a b**ch," as my friends used to say when I was a teenager.

(*Sniff*...I want so badly to belong.)

SO, here's what I'm doing: I'll post an entry about random crap, like, MOST days this month, and sprinkle in various movie reviews on alternating days. I know this isn't the same as fully taking the A to Z Challenge, but it's close enough for me. Maybe I'll wind up with 15 or 20 posts for April....That's a whole lot for Who Wants Taters!

Should be kinda fun and easy, so heck -- why NOT, right?

And whether I succeed or fail in this effort remains to be seen (I am, admittedly, a relatively unreliable individual). STILL, I'll give the whole blogging daily thing the old college try.


SO, today, I would like to talk about an issue that's REALLY been bothering me for quite some time: healthcare. Specifically, how our nation (America) deals with it.

See, healthcare in our country is in a crisis. There are millions of folks out there who lack insurance, and hundreds of thousands go bankrupt each year due to medical bills. Needless to say, the government HAD to take action. So, what did the esteemed leaders of the United States do to ensure that everyone get coverage?

They just passed a law REQUIRING everyone to get health insurance.

Yeah, that's a quintessentially half-arsed, American way of dealing with this whole issue, isn't it? "Let's just MANDATE that everyone have health insurance, and then FINE poor people for being too broke to afford it!" It boggles my mind..

I mean, how could such an approach possibly NOT end up being a complete disaster?


Look, we're going to have MILLIONS of people getting charged THOUSANDS of dollars come 2014, AND we're going to have MILLIONS of people who simply WILL NOT PAY UP. Either they won't understand the whole situation; they won't be willing to cooperate; or they simply won't have the money.

So, how does that brainless approach make sense???


Furthermore, I take issue with the the way we're even thinking about healthcare in the first place. Check this out:

Healthcare costs in the United States rise every year by alarming rates. Since 1999, the cost of US healthcare has gone up by 130 percent; there's routinely an increase in cost of more than ten percent every year. How is that sustainable? What, does everyone just think that employers, individuals, and government can continue to absorb such ridiculous yearly increases indefinitely???

Obviously, we can't. This insane trend with the cost of healthcare HAS TO STOP somewhere, or we are simply going to hit a brick wall with the whole deal.


I propose that the COST of healthcare is the real problem here, and not simply the fact that so many people lack insurance (in fact, most medical bankruptcies involve people who DID actually have coverage). Why is America just accepting that health costs are so high? Why do we approach the healthcare crisis by simply looking for ways to pay for it, rather than addressing the root cause? Personally, I consider that utterly insane.

Doctors, hospitals, and drug companies are getting away with highway robbery, and it's screwing up our entire economy. Honestly, I believe that the only way to deal with the healthcare situation in America is through strict price controls on medical services. Supreme Dictator-President Andrew Green would set up a large bureaucracy that would monitor every health-related procedure and/or service. No healthcare entity would be allowed to increase the price of anything in a single year by more than the rate of inflation, plus one percent. That would allow doctors, hospitals, and drug companies a little wiggle room for the precious "research and development" on which they're always blaming these high costs.

And, honestly -- even IF advancements in the medical field are the reason why prices have skyrocketed for a decade, we've got to ask ourselves if it's all been worth it.


I believe that recent so-called "improvements" in medical care haven't improved our quality of life enough to justify the outrageous cost. Governments are being rendered insolvent; companies are going under; people are bankrupt....Are marginal improvements in the treatments we receive really worth all of that?

I mean, it's not like they ever cure anything, anyway. Seriously -- polio is the last example I can cite of a disease that our health industry actually managed to eradicate. And they learned from THAT mistake, now didn't they? As Chris Rock once observed, there's no money in CURING anything; the medical profession nowadays understands that the sweetest deal is in keeping the patients coming back by providing them with a way to live with whatever disease they have.

(Gotta keep returning for those drugs.)

Friends, we don't NEED all of this medical crap...and we can't really afford it, anyway.

Besides, it's only a matter of time before brain dead employers begin cracking down on their workers' personal liberties in a misguided attempt to reduce their healthcare costs, and that's when I think things will have really gone too far. I mean, consider -- once Obamacare takes effect and the price of running a business shoots up even more, there will be companies everywhere wanting to monitor their employees' weight, exercise habits, alcohol intake, tobacco use, cholesterol, and food choices as a condition of getting paid. We'll all be living in an Orwellian Healthcare Hell.

And I, for one, have no intention of cooperating with THAT.

I say let us reduce the cost of healthcare in the first place, and solve this problem once and for all. Only then will America prosper, and all be right with the world!

I thank you fine folks for your time.


Up next: A review of a surprisingly decent zombie flick. Peace out!

b.