...please imagine how many people would be living healthy and properous lives today, if we did not live in a country where, every single day, whether through shootings or drunk drivers, people kill their fellow citizens for no reason...Dear friends,
During this entire presidential campaign season, the issue of "health care" has been brought up incessantly. The focus has been on the different strategies that candidates have dreamed up for realizing "universal" or some other kind of wide-ranging insurance coverage for all Americans. The most crucial aspect of the plans have been based upon a universal ability of citizens to be able to pay for their health insurance.
Many years ago, as an agent for what, at the time, was the most prosperous insurance agency in the nation (operating out of Philadelphia), I learned first-hand that "insurance companies love to collect premiums, but hate to pay claims". Yet, that simple truism points to a much deeper issue that neither candidate seems to be addressing. It is: Our health care is an industry not a "system". In other words, health workers do not work in unity for a specific purpose like better health for all citizens. Rather, they are separated from each other by competing business organizations - both government-sponsored and private, that are replete with televison commercials and newspaper advertisements.
So what is our health care industry other than that which represents the aggregate of businesses that belong to that particular trade? Of course, the actual purpose of any business, if that entity plans to be operating for a long time, is to create customers - not "maximize profits". It is here that HMOs and other bodies ruin hospital and other institutions that choose to have a more lasting affect upon the welfare of the ctizenry.
Still, at face value, all of this seems quite noble, that is, universal health care. However, neither candidate has talked about health care in the context of how people will be able to live healthy and productive lives. I am especially stressing this point, because in our society, mental life is not considered as important as its physical counterpart. Yet, it is the lack of good mental health that is at the basis of many of our problems in society.
For instance, please imagine how many people would be living healthy and properous lives today, if we did not live in a country where, every single day, whether through shootings or drunk drivers, people kill their fellow citizens for no reason. They kill strangers, over road-rage. They kill strangers, because they need money. People kill their entire families or a group of their co-workers, because they are angry. They sell food, in abundance, that they know is unhealthy. They sell cars that emit poisonous gases and can barely last for a few years. They make movies that promote inhumaity and cowardice, and glorify murder - and rape. They promote songs and music that promote hatred and intolerance. The list goes on and on...
Greed, amongst some in our society, that is being so proudly attacked by John McCain - a man who owns seven homes - is certainly a mental health issue. We have known for some time that the miser, for example, tries to "feel better" about himself or herself, by hoarding things, in order to make up for his or her otherwise bad feelings about himself or herself which is caused by a lack of self-worth. Moreover, both power and sexual greed are at the basis of all social relationships, in ths market-based society of "supply and demand", from sexual harrassment at work - to rape and incest.
At any rate, while I have mentioned his name on this blog on, at least, a couple of occasions, I am now actually presenting some of his work. Paul Krugman of the New York Times is always someone worth reading, whether you agree with him or not. Still, regardless of whatever Krugman and others have to say, I can still hear the refrain sung by the great Curtis Mayfield, "Depression is part of my mind, the sun never shines, on the other side of town..." As the jargon goes: Let's keep it real. Peace.
G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/opinion/06krugman.html?ei=5070&emc=eta1
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