I’ve been seeing an increasing number of television and print ads by AARP (American Association of Retired Persons, for those of you that were, indeed, born almost yesterday) pointing out that the ultimate cost of paritisan bickering and divisivness is failure. Failure will result from not ensuring a standard of economic security and safety net of healthcare for each and every citizen.
Now, one other thing: should you be one of these young whipper-snappers under the age of 55 and don’t thing this applies to you. I say “au contaire”. It will, so read on.
From their website:
Americans should have the peace of mind that comes with knowing that their futures will be financially secure and they will have health coverage when they need it. Yet, millions of Americans worry every day about their health and long-term financial security. Find out more about these issues and then take action!
I know, I know … to some this will sound like that nasty Euro style Socialism. I suggest that you start looking past the labels and to the bottom line, which is supposedly what we value above all in America.
If more and more citizens fall by the wayside economically, many due to a lack of comprehensive, affordable healthcare and insurance, you will have an entire economy and country that will decline in lockstep. There is no instance of a successful first world industrialized country built of a few haves and masses of have nots. If I’m wrong here, then educate me, please.
Times are getting tougher by the day. People are going to start making difficult choices. Gasoline and food or health insurance premiums. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see where the emphasis will go.
When the health insurance goes, these people end up clogging the waiting rooms of our already overstressed emergency rooms. I’ve had the misfortune to sit, sometimes for hours on a late night or weekend with a sick friend or relative while the less fortunate unwittingly gum up the works with every runny nose and cough that could have been prevented with a simple flu shot or other proactive medicine that the rest of us simply take for granted.
One bit that I see left out of the AARP statement, and I know will be picked up by the so-called social conservative group, is that it doesn’t address individual effort or responsibility. I wish they had caught that. I’m pretty sure they didn’t intend to promote a hand-out for slackers program. The people that I meet out in my community without adequate healthcare are the last thing from a slacker. They work damn hard, barely scratching by. Some with college degrees, some without. The discussion about ever more expensive eduction is another post.
It’s really time, as AARP declares, that we quit listening to talk and demand action. That would be new and different for the America of the last 40 years, where if something doesn’t work we throw in the towel and ‘privatize’ it - or from a different vantage point, give the business to a constituent as a plum.
This truly is a throw away society. If it’s broke, pitch it, don’t fix it.
I think we’re going find out, sooner rather than later, that this attitude will not take us into the difficult future we face and that it is time to look at demanding that our social and governmental institutions work, since we just won’t be able to ‘pitch them’ and buy new.
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Tuesday, October 26, 2010 at 09:41 
