msb-0268 This Must Be A Leap Year

msb-0268 This Must Be A Leap Year

intro

Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

MSBPodcast is "not" any kind of a medical podcast.

It is by and for MSers.

Its purpose is to keep us entertained, to explain our symptoms, to remark on our discoveries, and to raise the general consciousness about our disease.

The path to illness is shadowy, murky and rough strewn.

The path to wellness is lit by the lamp of knowledge.

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Feedback comes first, so...

Went out last night and we're going out again tonight having fun again so this is a show with absolutely nothing of any consequence to report.

But I've just realized that I in fact wrote a lot.

Enjoy.

---- "Leaps and Bounds" by: "Brian Lauri Project" http://brilaurimusic.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

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Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: "charles at MSBPodcast.com"

---- "Leap Of Faith" by: "Woodstock Taylor" http://www.myspace.com/woodstocktaylor

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Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: "charles (at) MSBPodcast.com"

---- "Leap of Faith" by: "Pudge" http://pudge.net/tunes/

"Thesis:"

If this show has a theme its that, as you dangle over the precipice of the future, sometimes you just have to let go and take a leap of faith.

Okay, it has really another theme.

Its about not a leap "of" faith but a leap "from" faith.

You "can't" run heath-care for profit like the other sectors of the economy. ("Holy Jeez," is he on about that again? You bet your bippy.)

You end up with people, on both sides of an un-winnable argument, like "this" one between an insurer and an insured, at least until the insurer dropped her, "in the middle of her chemotherapy". [ http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jf3kOQZF8y9J9WqUVv0NCuUHA_OgD8V04O800 ]

We all know what would have happened if the woman had "not" won a huge judgment against the insurer; she would have been dead and some people would have felt bad but have collected a bonus to assuage their conscience. (She happened on a judge with more integrity than most of the judges out there. [Most claims, some as necessary as this one, get rejected. {And I can get the insurance industry's own statistics to back me up.}])

And what about people "not" getting certain tests [ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/health/24dna.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin ] because they fear they might be denied coverage.

Why not?

The answer from the insurers themselves is most telling: "In 7 of 92 underwriting decisions, insurance providers evaluating hypothetical applicants said they would deny coverage, charge more for premiums or exclude certain conditions from coverage based on genetic test results."

How many others have lost their insurance coverage and ended up fertilizing the insurance company's back lawn?

Those insurance companies, sometimes the same ones, in other parts of the world "don't" have to put up with the inexorable bottom line which requires that their employees sometimes not sleep so well because their decision about someone's coverage may very well have been terminal.

But in winning for herself, she lost for others of us. The insurance companies will be more careful and quick to deny because those decisions impact their bottom line. (As emperor Vespasian said: "Money has no odor" It is also devoid of honor and devoid of conscience. [Its an instrument wielded with only as much malice as is in the hear of its wielder. {Most people have much to be ashamed of as they go wraith-like through life..}])

----

You have to use some of that rarest of commodities: "common sense".

For as song as we have kept statistics, the statistics have shown that 15% of the population is disabled in some way or another.

The individuals in the 15% may change because some of them die and some of them get better while new people join in, but there is always that 15%.

Why not open your eyes and say: "Its society's problem, let society deal with it, the same way it deals with defense."

What is not any body's problem is everybody's problem.

That's what practically, (emphasis on practically,) "everybody else" on this planet has done.

Just deal with it.

There are so fewer possibilities for fraud, so fewer possibilities for ripping off the system when there's only "one" system.

---- "Leap Of Faith" by: "Stewart Coleman" http://www.audiothought.com/

"Synthesis:"

Yup. The statistics kept by the World Health Organization (the WHO,) show that 15%, that's more than one in eight of us, is disabled.

Okay. Its from every possible kind of sickness, with every kind of possible ailment from deafness to disembowelment, with every kind of condition and running to every duration.

You cant run health for profit because its doesn't make any sense to try to operate with a divided actuarial base.

Health is a "societal" cost.

Its not logical to attempt to divide an undifferentiated mass of humanity into different sectors to extract some profit when, while there might be risk factors associated with behavior, there are all sorts of disease which just "happen" and the definition of an accident is "shit just happened".

The current health "don't" care system is a legacy of the administration of "Richard Millhouse Nixon", [ http://www.pr.com/article/1068 ] who really "didn't" give a flying fuck about anything if it wasn't getting him some votes.

But the "Humana" [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humana ] solution was getting him out of a political pickle, so he went for it.

He didn't give a flying fuck about the Chinese either; but going there was a strategic good move. He looked very statesman like.

Now look at who holds most of the paper for our idiotic debacles.

Now look at who is making most of the consumer goods we import, (and with the late Sam Walton's blessing too).

Well, lets see if one of the candidates thinks socialized medicine under the guise of "dog-eat-dog good ol' American capitalism, but only with just a single teat to suck on" can get him or her some votes.

Lets see if it rings a bell with "Barack Obama" (or "Hillary Clinton" [or even "John McCain", {who "could" come to his senses, (but I doubt it, Republicans since "Herbert Hoover" or have been known more for screwing things up than anything else. [Have any of them given a single "thought" to the ill or handicapped? {Nader's supposedly getting back in the harness and running, but he's got no cred as a candidate.}])}])

---- "Leap Of Faith" by: "John Taglieri" http://johntaglieri.com/

"Conclusion:"

Of course that doesn't mean that we can expect things to improve auto-magically.

There is nothing as stubborn in the face of evidence as human cussedness.

How long did we think the earth was flat despite the visible curvature of the sea when seen from atop a bluff?

How long did we think the size of an object determined how fast it would fall?

How many roads must a man, uh, no, that's Robert Zimmerman, (a.k.a. Bob Dylan.)

Human beings are strange creatures.

We'll just have to watch what's happening and try to derive what ever benefits can be wrung out of whatever situation we find ourselves in, every last one.

Nobody ever got squat from an insurance company except a dividend.

Listen to this: with life insurance, they insure you and if you die before they thought you would, you "win". "Woop-dee-the-friggin'-doo!"

That's a chump's game.

But, as long as we keep working towards it, the future "will" get better, for everybody.

---- "leap over" by: "Groove Factory Conobus" http://www.cdbaby.com/gfconobus

Outro