Paint Stains

From nyceve: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/13/0623/68223

I don't know whether to be excited or afraid. I don't expect the movie'll tell me anything new (I, Miss Extreme who moved countries because of healthcare) but I don't know how anyone could watch it without, perhaps, feeling sick.

Lame sidetrack: There was an episode of the Gilmore Girls season where Lorelei walked into her best friend Lane's room, and Lane is under the weather. The shot the audience gets is Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" poster on Lane's door, and Lorelei going "Hey, sicko." I always wondered if it was a plug for Moore's latest... Yeah, deep thought, eh?

Not Dead Yet from Spamalot playing in my head as I can post here after my surgery and say that: It went really well! (Aside from the nausea and starvation I had coming out of anaesthesia because I couldn't hold down my food for several hours after.) So many things (about the care, speed of treatment, ease of getting necessary drugs and diagnosis, paperwork, and of course cost) were different this time from the last experience in Raleigh, that calling it the difference between night and day is an understatement. The contrast is close to, I think, the difference between the deepest depth of hell and a lower rung of heaven. Even physical pain was way less this time. So many things were different. It's just too much to even write about. Never again do I want to experience American healthcare. Not in the state it is currently. And I feel bad for writing this.

The patron saint of the hospital where I had the surgery this last time was St. Francis of Assisi. This surprise was very welcome on the day of my admission.

Meditation rocks. Just wanted to throw that in. I'm looking forward to the 2-day workshop with the venerable Thubten Chodron at the end of this month. She's in Singapore at the time as I - the universe really likes me this month! Her writing just clicks and has made a difference more than anyone else I've read before. For the past 2 weeks, I've stopped cussing at people. No more "F%^king George W Bush!" Starting to read DailyKos with more calm - which I always thought had to be impossible. Alas, I still do think people can be stupid, and I'm still occassionally cussing at electronics.

And now, it's something like back to work for me - got one art commission on the table, and some PHP work to do. I've got a library of script components I can now put together to make CMSs ... because I still can't find a free CMS I like - it's not like they aren't good (e107 looked terrific, trying it out) but most of their features and scripts are so bloated compared to how my coding style is developing, I can't quite commit myself to liking and committing to one. I'd spend too much time stripping it down, down, down.

Talking about which - I'm going to get to work. See ya later!

Finding a lot of good stuff this morning:

From http://www.alternet.org/story/40388/ :

When my son was born five years ago in Tel Aviv, the nurse complimented his good health by saying: "He'll make a good soldier." That gave me the chills. The babies he shared the nursery with will, in 13 years, be fighting the third, or fourth or fifth Lebanon war.

And Scathing Indictment of U.S. healthcare from the Commonwealth Fund - nyceve links to the story covering the percentages of different income-level Americans having trouble coping with medical costs - and they are quite substantial.

So a not-small percentage of people who are not millionaires in America are basically hobbling by. (Feel free to disagree, I don't regard the percentages in the story as small. And sadly, I don't see myself entering the income group soon where I only have a 20% chance of worrying about the cost of medical care in America.)

Our local NPR station covered medical tourism recently - and Jason responded to the story and called them, and we were contacted in return for our story. I never would have thought our medical nightmare story and our impetus for leaving the US can be the stuff worth broadcasting about (edit: I mean by most media sources' standards), but some smart people in Chapel Hill think it is. I'll talk more about that later.

Never did I think the twain would meet... but they just did.

Death Launches A Diary On Daily Kos

Thankfully, he doesn't type in ALL CAPS all the time.

On the downer side, nyceve covers the cost of anti-nausea medication for chemo patients in the US and contrasts it with the cost of them in Canada. I know you know they'll be cheaper up north, but did you know how much cheaper?

nyceve and bonddad are my favorite writers on DailyKos. Today nyceve revealed what healthcare would be like (in this case, in Dallas) if one ever got into a bad car accident. (I have always wondered.) This was a person with health AND catastrophic insurance. It is fucking depressing reading:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/8/1/155243/8957

John Kerry has proposed a plan to have all Americans have health insurance by 2012.

It sounds good, but alas, I'm not sticking around to wait.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/7/15/132936/405

Recommend it, rate it, troll-rate it, your choice. I'm sorry it was so long, but the story does span over a year, and describe my personal experience with US healthcare. And then, I will probably piss everyone off by describing Singapore healthcare in contrast.

The topic of healthcare is big, and there are no easy answers. But my main thrust behind the piece is this: it is complete bullshit to believe that no better healthcare system exists in the world than the one the US neocons want.