If you don't know how to fix something, all you need to do is study something similar that is working and try to duplicate it as best you can. As long as you have a model, you can reverse engineer and duplicate it with relative ease.
I'm no economist, thank God, but I think our present health care system is like an old Chevy you used for car pooling for the past 40 years without bothering to give it any maintenance. It worked fine back in '69 but now you have to pump up the tires, add a few quarts of oil, and jump start it every morning before you to get to the gas station for another tank of gas to get you to work. Your car pool buddies give you a couple dollars a week for gas, as they have done for decades, and stare blankly out the windows as this piece of crap smokes and sputters it's way through red lights and stop signs to your employment destination. You keep the windows down for this journey because the exhaust leaks through the floorboards. The carbon monoxide and heavy gasoline vapor from unburned fumes fills the cab, brings tears to your eyes, and deadens your senses at a time when you need to be your sharpest. This carbon monoxide/gasoline vapor bath lasts for an hour each morning and evening, draining your life force for two hours a day, five days a week, for your whole working life.
You're not the only car filled with people going to work. Each morning you notice the Germans in their Mercedes limousine blowing your doors off, going 90mph to the same place as you. It takes them about ten minutes each way with climate controlled comfort, an on-board espresso maker, and freshly ironed newspapers printed early that morning and delivered by courier to the limo just before departure.
The French workers get picked up in a Citroen Premier, the English get transport with their Jaguar XJ, and every other car pool has their national vehicle of choice.
Each year, the Mercedes undergoes a complete overhaul by certified Mercedes technicians, replacing and updating all parts that aren't up to their demanding standards. This complete overhaul takes exactly 24 days, usually in August. Periodic maintenance takes place every day, checking the fluids and all systems and lasts about an hour. The French have 30 days each year to perform their annual overhaul with unlimited periodic maintenance, whenever needed. The English have a mere 20 days a year to maintain their Jaguar XJ but periodic maintenance is consistent.
The 40 year old American Chevy has 12 days a year to perform this annual maintenance but the mechanics (as opposed to technicians) have just enough time to give it a general tune-up and change the oil at Quickie Lube before they outsource it to a gentleman from Pakistan for his taxi business.
The health care system is just like this car scenario. German vacation time is a guaranteed 24 days a year paid vacation, the English get 20 days paid leave, the French get a whopping 30 days guaranteed paid vacation a year, unlimited sick days, full child care, and social workers who come to help new parents adjust to the strains and challenges of child-rearing.
Americans get, on average, 12 vacation days a year. In most cases, they don't even get that unless they work full time for at least 90 days. Some places require one year working for your present company before you're entitled to a weeks vacation, if any at all.
If you go to Germany any time in August you won't find many Germans. Why? Because they're all on vacation in places like Thailand, India, The U.S., Italy, Spain, and anywhere else because they have a whole month paid vacation no matter how long you work for that particular company.
Where do Americans go for vacation?
The shore closest to their homes so they can drive out, get a tan, party at night, and drive back to their jobs, tired, hungover, and sunburned.
What does all this vacation talk have to do with health care? Isn't it obvious? You beat yourselves up at work to have a vacation that stresses you out because of time and money restraints, just to go back the the same old, same old for another year. If you're lucky, you might have sick time to take care of yourself. Take off too much time and you'll lose your job. No pay, no vacations, lots of unpaid bills, and no health insurance.
Depression due to prolonged stress and a diet of fast food is no way to go through life, but to many Americans, that's exactly what life is all about.
After all, how do you expect to become wealthy if you don't work long hours with three jobs shoveling shit in hell for minimum wage? That IS the American way. This is the land of opportunity where anyone can strike it rich and become a millionaire just by waking up early and putting your shoulder to the grindstone for eight hours a day with a half-hour lunch and 2 ten minute breaks so you can discuss stock options with your workmates.
Isn't that the American way to prosperity and happiness?
Or would you rather have health care like the rest of the free world?
OMG! What a crappy post!
I was in such a hurry to get this done I totally missed my own point and it makes me look like a Chevy hating, foreign car buying, supporter of Obama's putrid health care plan.
Let me clarify a few things.
1. I chose a 40 year old Chevy because it stretches the bounds of reality to expect anyone to believe that a Ford can last any more than 20 years. Chevy is the only American car that can put up with that kind of abuse.
2. I was ranting about vacations and how a month of vacations a year can keep you more healthy than the best health care on Earth. In fact, vacations are the ultimate health care. Just ask those old fossils in congress. Most are octogenarians who have a vacation that lasts 9 months out of the year and they still have an active sex life screwing the American public every day.
3. The present American economic system makes any kind of universal health care virtually impossible. Insurance companies are deeply embedded in the system and aren't going to give up anything. Expecting the government to pay medical expenses for non-working, indigent, useless eaters ultimately comes out of the pockets of working people who are already overburdened with higher taxes, higher insurance costs, higher costs for everything, shitty jobs with shitty pay, and no end in sight of this socialist downward spiral of Wall St. greed with the blessing of an ass-licking congress. Uncle Sam's only job is taking your money and giving it to someone else, less expenses. Every dime you get from Uncle Sam costs some other guy a dollar.
4. If you want a health care model that works, look to countries that have a good working model and see what they've done and what their people think about it.
5. If you're unwilling to completely gut your whole, broken, economic system for the good of mankind, then don't do anything.
6. Pay for your own health care and quit complaining. If you want a free ride learn English and get a job on Wall St.
7. I think Barry Obama and his health care plan sucks!
8. I drive my own car to work.
I've been ignoring the garden since my lawnmower went on the fritz several weeks ago. I figured the garden would have to wait, since my yard was turning into a hay field. I can't speak for the rest of the country, but there aint no sign of drought here. More rain than I ever saw in August and I only watered the garden once this year.
One thing I learned is I could have doubled the amount of plants if I had planted them in rows instead of using square foot gardening methods. Oh well, I'm new at this. No one is an expert, at first.
