Mind and Mindlessness

I'm not sure if the word "mindlessness" actually exists, but I'm convinced it should in order to put a tag, a name, a sign, a label to a lot of the things, thoughts and actions that surround us daily. If the word does exists, I guess that should be the main topic of most of my posts: mindlessness of politics, mindlessness of people around me, mindlessness at work, global mindlessness.

The mindlessness that concerns me today is, again, about America and their politicians. Here I hear people talking against Universal Health-care and then rolling up on some tremendously incongruent "Anti-Obama" movement that leaves me petrified. First of all, I can't imagine a single person in his right mind that would go against Universal health-care. I mean, let's cut the "communist" baloney here for five seconds, and let's think about what would it mean for everybody to actually be able to go to the hospital and be received, taken care of and cured, and not having to worry about bills and being able to pay for the treatment, or cutting back on the medication prescribed because it can't be afforded and so on.

At the same time, Universal Health-care isn't by default a bad service, but instead it is as good as the Government orders and enforces it to be, just like education. If the Government puts money into it, makes sure that the Health care budget gets applied to health-care and follows closely the indexes of quality and satisfaction, then I guess there couldn't be no problem. I mean, in so many countries it worked just fine for so long, until, of course, the profit-seeking enterprises decided to get a slice of the business.

So, on the other hand, just as I can imagine sane people going against Universal Health Care, I can see why people don't see that the only ones losing with it are the companies. If you have universal health care, and it's good, why would you pay for an expensive health insurance? Why would you go to an insanely expensive private hospital to be treated? I'll tell you why: you wouldn't unless the private sector gives you something extra. For instance, better service, doctors with more experience, quicker reception, bigger rooms, private rooms and so on. The problem here isn't that this is a matter of "communism", I mean please, like Universal Health Care will suddenly revive the Red Menace? The Soviet Union will raise and poise it's nuclear weapons and Karl Marx on the U.S. again? Be realistic. The problem here is that all the private medicine market has it so well giving a so-so service, charging exhorbitant fees, then deciding whether you deserve to receive what you've paid for n-th fold, only to find ways to charge you more, give you nothing and keep you dying.

I mean, imagine to have a dental plan in the Universal Health Care, and get as much as 9% of your paycheck reduced for it, and you can get sick whenever you want --- well, you don't want toget sick, but that's the general idea --- and if more than one at home get sick, to be able to ACTUALLY take everybody to the hospital. Why would this be evil? Well, as you know by now, because that reduces the profit of the private sector, and what's worse, actually forces them to be better and give you what they promise you, and isn't that evil?

Short Comments

Unlike some people who prey on bloggers to post their entries as "comments", and so generate long, almost Proust-like volumes as "comments", I'll actually write today a very, very short entry, mostly because I've no time.

There's an article that has kept me thinking. Yesterday I read in the news that Health Care centers seek to voluntarily reduce costs. I wonder one thing: how will they do it? If they lay-off people, they can attend less patients. If they decide to "cut superfluous consultings", who will decide what's important and what's superfluous? Because, I don't know you, but I certainly don't go to the hospital to amuse myself, and maybe a case of, lets say, migraine is not nearly as bad a diabetes or cancer, but fuck if I'm not suffering for it, and if I pay for the service, I'm entitled to get it. So, how is this going to happen?

Today in Costa Rica the news said that our Social Health Care Institution, CCSS, is low NOW on epilepsy medication TOO. The purchase has to be done, and it may take some days. So, epileptics, no seizures! I can't help but wonder if this is also a "miracle" of the CAFTA. After all, now it is illegal to make or purchase generic medicines, and, well, none-generic ones are very expensive. Our social care is slowly depleting, left dry and penniless and all those who requiere medication, treatment have three choices: 1. get fucking rich and pay for it, 2. remain poor and die from a sickness that could be treated, or 3. turn to the world of crime where you can break into farmacies or get medication through a black market similar to that of the cocaine. Then, naturally, you can go also kidnapping people to get ransom to pay for your medication (like the 24 hour kidnappings, so usual here), or any other kind of crime. After all, it's no longer like in the old days. Today crime does pay, and it pays a hefty amount.

Thank you, Capitalist Pigs.

When You Can't Smoke

I love to smoke. I adore to smoke. Smoking is one of the greatest pleasure and leisure activities in the world. As some people learn to taste different wines and different teas and different coffees, I learned little by little the art of tasting the soft finesse of tobacco. I was personally hurt when countries and legislations started to shut the door on the face of smokers, placing the rights of non-smokers about those who do. If smoking tobacco isn't an ilegal activity, why should smokers be chased and their rights trashed? I fiercely advocated, and still do foir a change in the way to do things, defining locations for smokers and non-smokers so we can all live our lives without trampling each other. Forcing a part of the society to seek some seedy corner to inhale a little of hot, flavoured, spicy smoke... a product that isn't ilegal per se, but making the act of consuming ilegal due to location, is an act of discrimination. Oh dear, did I say "discrimination"? Yes, Discrimination. So yes, people can get sick and can get lung cancer and enfisemas and heart diseases for being near smoking people, BUT truth is that other stuff also gives you that. I don't have the data for sure, but if I'm not mistaken, more people suffers from asthma and lung related problems due to smog and other contaminante present on the environment. But of course, it is far easier to blame the smokers than blaming the drivers. However, trying to talk in favor not of smoking, but on behalf of smokers is currently a Sisyphusian job (as we say in Hungary) since people, in their "big illumination" don't want to hear anyone talking about such heretic notions as "smokers' rights".

Anyway, I'm one of those poor souls who have been banned from smoking thanks to a disease: asthma. If you ask me if I regret it, no, I don't. I enjoyed every cig I smoked, and I hope one day I can go back to it. You don't have to agree with me on this, but Hyne if smoking wasn't the best thing ever... So, now I can smoke, and I look longingly at those who can. The funny thing is the other stuff I do now that I can smoke: I have taken to collect lighters. This has taken me to think, what do people do when they have to give up something they loved? Make it a vice, a person, a job, an attitude, a place... when you had to give up something that has grown deep into your being... what do you do?

Help Outside, Ignore Inside

The key words for this might be: indifference, lack of priorities, lack of interest in what matters, wish to "make believe". Truth is, this is not a new phenomenon. I'm talking about the case of black people in the US who have AIDS and yet receive less aid than people abroad. It's not really making headlines in the newspapers, though it will work as excellent racist matter for white parents who wish to keep their white kids from "fraternizing" with those "infected monkeys". Oh yeah, racism is still heavy in some of the most developed parts of the world. In the brink of an election where there is a candidate who's said to be black, and really, I would have never known if someone doesn't tell me, and even so, I don't see him black (then again, I don't think Beyoncé or Halle Berry are black...), there are harsh differences made between citizens based on flimsy matters such as skin color.

In an article about the efforts made by the US Government to aid in the fight against AIDS, the reporter mentions that there are more black people in the US with AIDS than in some of the "target nations" the Government is helping. Why is the Goverment spending $19 billion in these people and let their own black citizens struggle? The article says that if they were a separated nation, the US would surely help them, and that the percentage of adults with this virus comes close to that of Uganda. Dude, that sounds bad. Why, oh why is it so? The American black population is at risk with this virus due to the fact that many black men have several sexual partners, and so the percentage of people infected among them is higher. Okay, first of all, why talk about "Black America" and "America"? Let's start with the unavoidable FACT that AMERICA is not a country, but a continent, mainly LATIN, so you are screwed. Then the U.S. is the U.S., same and only to all its citizens. It is, at the same time, rather interesting that different politics have to be issued for different groups of citizens based on the skin color. Does it means that in the US there's a "white law" and a "black law"? Or is it that you are to help the black in detriment of the white? Or the white in detriment of the black? Segregate straights from gays, Republicans from Democrats as if they were not the same? The Government should be one and only for the entire population, helping the poor and establiching the conditions for dignified living for all citizens.

For me, the schism between citizens and the aid they get separated from skin color is just another veil upon a larger fact: the people who elect the Government, and finance it with taxes, is the first neglected. It's not a matter of black or white, but a matter that good American taxes, paid with the working effort of American citizens and residents is shipped abroad to fund wars that give little to non to negative benefits for the taxpayers, and now, on top of that, after education is crumbling into abismal medicrity and there's no "health" or "care" in the taxing American Healthcare, a good chunk of that tax money is spent in other countries, to help people that did not elected the Government and didn't pay the taxes that fund that aid. All Christian values fade here. Hell, one thing is to be a rich country aidng with its excess to poorer countries, but the US has long since been a real "rich country". Wealth is concentrated in a few hands and the large portion of the population is slipping into poverty rather fast. Arrange your home first and then help others later. Stop with this campaign to get the favor of other nations, pretending to be the Big Rescuer and for once, rescue your own people.

Bill to Keep Severaly Mentally Ill from buying Guns

... okay, up to this morning I thought the stupidest thing in the world was my boss, but then I was proved wrong. I check the news and what do I see in my Washington Post? President Bush signs a bipartisan legislation to forbid guns to be sold to "severaly mentally ill" people. Okay, does that mean that up to this day even the looney, craziest motherfucker in the States could buy a gun? Just like that? Geez, I'm surprised there's still people living there! According to the article, this has been result of the Virginia Tech shooting.

I would like to know what it takes for the Government of the United States to understand that the problem with violence is that everybody is armed. So letting people keep their guns or, okay, only the not-so-looney ones is not the solution. Not only the crazy people kill, for as far as I know, the sane people tend to kill more. Kill, wound, threaten... And then, "severaly mentally ill" is not an exact measure but a subjective measurement that can vary from psychatrist to psychiatrist. The solution would be, in my opinion, to ban all guns save the ones used by the police or sport, but otherwise, people should not be allowed to have guns or any kind of weapon. And if the issue here is the right of people to be safe, well, that's what the police is for. They should make better security policies, apply the Law better, pro-citizen and have efective enforcement, but while people is allowed to own guns, people will be dying in violent, senseless ways.

Today another article said that the U.S. has slipped to the last position regarding health care among the 19 most industrialized countries. First, I wonder which would be it's position compared with all the countries in the world, and Hyne forbid, if it finds itself behind one or more "developing" countries. Second, the thought that comes to mind is how the U.S. is slipping. The currency falters, its trust is broken, health is broken, education levels are broken, poverty, hunger, violence infest it like a disease... what is left soon, but a large expense of land arid, abused and maybe even sickened under the polution, the toxic substances and the asphalt and concrete poured onto it. And this is the "Great Muscle", the "Great World Power"? If it is so, I can't but feel pity for the world.

I can't help but ask again, when will people take back the control that has been so bravely conquered by the French Revolution, fought for in so many countries, in so many ways, Hyne, remember Chicago and the women who died for equity, remember so many brave Union workers who gave their lives against Ford! Was the democracy of the world expected, the Soviet Shadow's fall awaited so that men would be sold like cattle to the new power-lords? This disgusting breed of brainless dictators?

We are men. We are human. We are not like this.

Out for Three Days

Do not look for me, I probably won't be able to post from tomorrow to Saturday, since *I* will be in Wien. ^_^ Yes, yes, yes, the city of Mozart, Freud and Maria-Theresia. What will I do? *looks around* Well, nobody seems to know the answer, why would I? Hehehe... I'll have fun and do whatever pleases me when it pleases me. I want Wien all for my own.

...

In the Holidays, it seems there are only a few news, or at least a few journalists working. Perhaps it's unfair for me, who have been almost three weeks not working (one week on sick days and soon to fulfil two-and-a-half on vacations), to expect others to work all the time. Hey, I'm home, I want my news! We peopel can be so unconsiderated to one another. So, I guess journalists are entitled to take some vacations for their own purposes. So, There's so little of the Washington Post, I barely receive a section per day instead of my issue full paper and the separated fuller sections of Politics and Technology. I actually expected no news to comment, but then again, CNN don't stop. The article that caught my attention is this piece titled: "India's Outsourcing Industry Takes Toll on Workforce". I don't link it since I have no idea if you can follow the link or not. Most likely you can't since it's an e-mail encoded site.

Since it has to do with "work", "labor", I was insterested. Hey, I'm a Development Economist after all, and I'm passionate about what I learned. As I opened the article, I realized it is about the situation in the call centers in India. It names cases in IBM Corp, Hewlett-Packard and Intel among others. The article basically says that though this jobs pay people more than what they could ordinarily earn, it's causing several problems to the health and mental and emotional health of the people. Weight disorders, heart disease, sleep disorders and so on. Their trget labor force is composed by people between 20 and 30, I guess, they project themselves as a "temporary job" place. Then again, due to the harsh conditions, regardless to the good payment, the job churn rate must be quite high.

I have friends and acquintances working in Costa Rica in this industry, and it honestly concerns me. It's also depressing to see how even Universities have opened the "Call Center Officer" fac. I don't understand why people can't see this is going the very wrong way. Okay, there are people who have worked a lifetime as call center operators (mostly at telecommunication enterprises... like giving information and so), but that can't be compared with what goes on today. What I see is a modern version of the same horrors described by Karl Marx in his Masterpiece "Das Kapital": the poor, starved, young worker is squeezed for the maximum profit: little payment, long hours of hard, demanding work. If we were horrified at tales of six year-old kids dying in the mines, and twenty-year-old girls literaly worked to death in embriodery shops, or at seamstresses, then why can't we see how our youth is robbed of their health and possibility to grow by this companies. How many of them can use the money they earn to further educate themselves and find a better job?

Though I preech that the economics are merely eficient, and leave the social problems to others, it's not our place (as economists) to solve the world, I'm sorry to tell this enterprises, that the social part is needed to keep our laborforce healthy and productive for years to come. Kill them before they can get their pensions is not a viable solution. Squeezing them and making them work sick and depressed is not a productive, eficient solution, and though the economics can separate themselves from the social part at the theoretical level (that's what the Ceteris Paribus is for), at the practical level they can't. Furthermore, we economists still float several levels above the ground and society, since we are still the macro planners, but the enterprise, which is IN the society, must be careful and conscient about the society.

Call centers around the world should consider the social and health factor of their employees and change their politics.

1. Shorter worktimes (make it a part-time job for everybody! Do not allow full-timers due to health considerations, like the health of the ear.)
2. Respect natural working hours as well as holidays and the native customs and habits.
3. Promote the social interaction of the employees as well as the interaction of the enterprise with the environment and the society.
4. Promote the further education of the employees

Familiy, friends and self. Health and comfort. Enterprises work with people, and if they should care for the people at least as much as they care for the machinery and equipment... and actually far more.

More Shootings

Shooting at a church in Colorado and a mission training center. Really, what's going on here?

I remember when the saddening thing was hearing about murders, but like ONE person killed another, not these springs of mass shooting and crazy people. In the U.S. it seems it's no longer enough to keep yourself out of trouble and be a good citizen. If you don't go to trouble, trouble is coming to you. How can you be safe? Guns? No, I don't think so. Education, social work, social effort.

I was watching yesterday this movie from Michael Moore called SiCKO. Though I knew the thing was BAD, I was still shocked. I mean, 50 million people with no health insurance? That's bad enough, considering there are countries of less than that in population. Take Iceland: 250 thousand. Hungary: 10 million. Switzerland: 7.3 million. Austria: 8 million. Spain: 45 million.

The movie, however, is about the other 250 million people with health insurance and how they receive REJECTION letters to their treatments becauise they are too expensive. Like, they are not allowed to be cured and treated after they are paying for health?

I have been writing about these topics for a long time now, but this is the first time I see such a documentry gathered. I felt it still fell short on may matters, such as the long wiating list to which people are exposed, the endless battles, the "lost results" and stuff like that.

The end of the DVD I lent was damaged, soi I couldn't see the part about Cuba, nor if there was any other comment on this regards, but I do like to note this loud and clear: If this is a "DEVELOPED COUNTRY", do we still want to become like them? A world where life is impossible? Where people fear illnesses like they did in the medieval times? because really, soon the only health care they will be able to afford will be witchcraft. Santeros and Wiccans will become the new "rich" over there. How is it possible that in such a proud country people allow such mistreat and abuse from the authorities? They freed themselves from the Brits for this? Bad choice...

Locky The Bunny: Health in Developped Countries: A Commodity with no Warranty

Dear Lee Jordan,




Do you have an iPod? I believe you do. Well, if you are one of those "save it all" kinds, perhapy you have around the box in which it came, or the CD, and booklets that came with it. (I believe you have already stuck the stickers to the bumpers of your car or to your non-descriptive lap top of your "frankie" desktop.) Well, perhaps you could check it (but I guess you won't) the booklets. One of them is that thicker with pictures, which you will never read because is the manual, and people never read it until after the first time the iPod broke down and you found out that Apple charges you $35 just for looking at it. THEN you read it and realize it says nothing either new or either useful. The other booklet is the "boring booklet" you sure as hell will never read save the big bold letter that say "Apple One-Year Limited Warranty". It doesn't matter until the iPod brokes doen for good, and we check whether it's within the Warranty Year and if the warranty covers the damage.

You find these warranties to a large list of products, most of them technological products. Then, as we learned a few months ago, you also find a 90 warranty on health services in some hospitals in Philadelphia. Honestly, the first time I read about that I was rolling on the floor laughing. I mean, who the hell thinks about giving warranty to a health service? I mean, the job of the doctor is to sure you, and if you don't get better, you go again and the doc keeps healing you. Of course, then again, I think in our Social Insurance system, where a part of everybody's wage goes to pay health, pregnancy and retirement insurance. I get sick, I go to the doc, and the doc does his or her best to heal me. Sure, sometimes it takes a lot of time to get an appointment, but so it happens in private clinics. Well, maybe I think that way because I live in a small, "under developed" country, and I also have the experience of a "former communist" country's Health System.

Usually, for those who do not live in the US, the idea is sold that the US is like this wonderful, miracle-land where everything is the best it can be in any part of the world. There's wealth and opportunities and the best of everything. Well, allow me to differ. I won't go into the "education" part here, nor will I go into infratructure, industry, employment, production, technology, universal access to telecommunications and opportunities, but lets just tackle the topic of "health".

On the past days, weeks even, I have been alarmed by the news about budget cuttings in the "Medicaid" insurance, which is basically the health insurance program designed for low income people in America. The "better income" health insurance programm would be "Medicare". There's people who fall in between both of these. These people earn too much to be in Medicaid, but they can't afford Medicare. There's not a plan for them, but the US Government had a program set for ten years back in the nineties, to offer health insurance for the children of families in this segment. Not all children have been covered with this insurance so far, but if I recall the numbers correctly, there are round ... two million kids covered? I believe the total number of children that should be covered raises around eight million. Now, this is only the children. You might think that grown ups either manage, or pay some sort of low insurance or something, but what about the elderly? What about a family that has to take care of the Grandpa or the Grandma? No coverage for them in this program. If there are 8 million children, how many adults and senior citizens are then uncovered? Could it be, that then parents are forced to take the kids, the COVERED kids to the doc and get medicins to give to the elders?

In the face of this, President Bush decided to cut back the budget for this plan, and so far has given no signs of supporting an extention of the program, which runs to an end this year, I believe. Because of fraud and misusage? Nah, that's just my theorizing. It's because he does not agree with the requested extention and the larger budget requested. Reason? He claims he does nto agree with how it's presented, he's "willing" to give more money , but with a better plan. Sounds loable, but then again:

1. How can he request a better plan when everybody has been sucked into the war-vortex and no one has had enough time to sit down and work on a better plan?
2. Okay, has he ACTUALLY read the whole proposal before refusing it?
3. Okay, the proposal is not good, where's HIS proposal?

On this matter we can go on and on and on. One would think that yes, if you want to enjoy a good health, or at least the level of attention we enjoy in the poor and under developped, former communist countries, you have to be loaded with money. It does upset me to think that American people is forced to pay to get health, that there where doctors out there who modified their ancient "Hypocratic" oath (I have it posted somewhere) to add: "I swear to help only those who are properly covered by an insurance plan and are up to date with their payments". That was until I read this article in the New York Times about the problems with the Medicare. "Drug lists" changed with no notice, people EXCLUDED regardless they pay up to date their payments because their treatment is too expensive. And here we are talking about AIDS patients. Poor customer service attention, poor hospital attention, messy accounts, serious lack of information about the insured's rights, and so on.

So, even when you pay the big bucks for the best health insurance your money can buy, the treat you bad. They sell you a service, but then hold back and change things at their will, not consulting you, cutting you of any chance to react. People, this is the people WITH MONEY!! People with annual incomes up to $ 80 000!!! I mean, fuck here I am with my barely earned $12 000 - $15 000 a year and I don't have "drug lists". Okay, the social health plan fixes me on generics, but they work and they do the trick. (Well, now that we have been tricked into the CAFTA, who knows for how long. But maybe, if I manage to get back home, I will be again under the protective TBK, and live will be fine and healthy again.) God forbids, but if I get AIDS or Cancer or any "expensive" illness, the social insurance will keep me on medication and treatment regularly until the day I die. And here people who earn six to eight times more than me are tied to a health plan that changes without letting him know and cut them off if their sickness is no longer profitable.

What's wrong with you people?? Where's your innate, human right to health? Mankind has made so many advances in this area, why are you being cut of it? It's already bad that the Health Insurance plans aid to set apart people by their income, etching social gaps among people, cut with the axe of economical "power", but then again, has health been so undervaluated, has human life lost its worth so much that now even those who pay are denied of the minimal expected quality?

People, health, just like education are not goods, but rights earned through centuries of development and blood spilled in historical battles for the greater good. People should not be made compete for it. The economical "vote" should not apply to them. Rich, poor, black, red, yellow, white, christian, jew, muslim, buddhist, atheistic, man, woman, child, adult... everybody should be secured the right to them, and the best of them. We cannot dehumanize to this level. People, we elect Governments, we should make them responsible for the greater good of the society. Aren't health and education VITAL to that greater good. These should never be privatized. People should not be charged for them. Everybody should have access to the best attention mankind is capable of.




Love to All,

Locky The Bunny