race to diagnosis

[mellowtigger]

I believe that the world (the whole universe, actually) lacks all the resources that are desired.  Meaning... every desire cannot be fulfilled.  Some want has to go unfulfilled.

Minnesota is facing severe budget shortfalls.  Our ideologue governor, however, promises not to sign for a single tax increase.  Instead, he's in the habit of pushing costs downward to more local governments which then have to raise their taxes to compensate.  The ideologue wins on a technicality.  *disgruntled sigh*

He's now announced his most recent budget proposal.  There are lots of cutbacks.  Frankly, all of them seem disturbing.  A followup article focuses specifically on the health care cuts.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty's proposal to cut a net of $347 million from programs for sick, aged, disabled and jobless people is akin to the advice an ailing George Washington got from his doctors 210 years ago, one critic said Monday: Bleed him, in hope of a cure. 

Pawlenty would eliminate the General Assistance program in which about 20,000 disabled and very-low-income people receive an average of $175 a month. 

He also would remove about 21,500 childless adults earning between $8,100 and $27,000 from MinnesotaCare, the health insurance program for lower-income working people.
- http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/84422862.html

That last sentence?  That would be me.

The sad thing is that even all the harsh cutbacks still depend on receiving future federal money.  They still depend on pushing true costs out into future state budgets.  Both obvious signs of accounting hack jobs.  (But don't you dare raise taxes, no, because that would destroy the republic.)

I go in next week for my EMG tests.  I go see the neurologist two weeks after that.

It's a race to see if I can leech taxpayer money for my medical diagnosis before the money disappears.

Comments

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

It's not leeching. You have been paying taxes your whole life.

[mellowtigger]

If there's any justice at all in the world, I have something that'll leave me disabled (in the legal sense) soon so that I can get some of the Social Security money that I've been paying all my life... before that fund goes bankrupt and disappears too.

Honestly, where is all this money going? Other nations don't divert this much GDP to provide universal care. Are we using our medical dollars to feed lawyers? *big ignorant shrug*

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

IIRC something like 1/3 of it goes on non-medical domestic social programs, 1/5 on military spending, and the rest in smaller parcels to other things like foreign aid etc.

[joshuwain.livejournal.com]

I'd like to toss out an inflammatory, derisive invective against our governor. He certainly deserves it. But what good would it do? He, and many others in positions of power, have a good many people in this nation believing in the cult of the bottom line.

Economics has become an end rather than a means.

Even those who would embrace social reform or more progressive measures look upon their goals as ends to be reached rather than tools, these days. Everyone has fallen prey to those who wanted to structure the argument in terms of finance and money. It's all we ever talk about. And because we only talk about things in terms of their monetary and fiscal outcomes we have allowed our thinking to become shaped in such a way as to put all other concerns secondary to those concerns.

This is not to say we should not be worried about money or economics; anything but! Rather, that we have allowed this beast -Mammon- to become our God and He is choking us by our long, heavy, golden chains of interest, thought, and desire.

I think the only solution is to start a backlash against this thinking in all that we say and do.

Your garden is a great example! The bottom line, there, is what you produce but in terms of so many things: not just the economic. Can it be described that way? Certainly. But that's not what you get out of it.

Perhaps we need to get everyone thinking more about multiple "bottom lines" and that money -economics- is not the only framework by which we should view the world. Our business and political leaders don't have the final say in our lives, certainly not our religous leaders either, so we should craft our community leaders in this image. Maybe, then, we can craft an alternative to this stifling scenario.

What do you think?

Yours,
Dave

[foeclan.livejournal.com]

US Economy Grinds to Halt As Nation Realizes Money Just A Symbolic, Mutually Shared Illusion (http://www.theonion.com/content/news/u_s_economy_grinds_to_halt_as)

The Onion's pretty topical lately. ;)

[sctmpls.livejournal.com]

I thought of you when I heard the details of the cuts yesterday and figured you would be affected. My favorite quote from T-PAW was his "justification" for cutting Minnesota Care. "Only three or four other states cover these kinds of people"

No, let's not be a leader in health care coverage, let's shoot for fiftieth! UNBELIEVABLE. I was seething in the car.

[geometrician.livejournal.com]

... these kind of people.

ARGH!

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

Three or four other states ... and pretty much the entirety of the rest of the industrialized world.

Idiot.

[mellowtigger]

Careful what you say. He might be the next U.S. president.

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

I say - now watch what you say
They'll be calling you a radical,
A liberal,
Oh, fanatic or criminal!

Oh won't you sign up your name
We'd like to feel you're acceptable,
Respectable,
Oh, presentable - a vegetable!
-- from "The Logical Song" by Supertramp

From where I'm standing, worrying about the consequences of calling someone like Pawlenty an idiot is entirely un-American. Calling politicians an "idiot" is a long-standing tradition in countries that style themselves to have some semblance of freedom of speech.

[mellowtigger]

Sorry, my post was meant to be facetious, of a sort. More of a "you'll jinx it and get what you don't want" kind of way. :)

(But I was in a hurry to get out to Bear Coffee to reserve extra table space for the bigger crowd than usual so probably should have taken time to elaborate. Turns out, it was a slightly bigger crowd, and I was right to get there early to claim more space.)

[pi3832.livejournal.com]

He also would remove about 21,500 childless adults...

Well, there you go. Just make a kid you can't afford to support and you can have your health care back! And you'll get more benefits at work, too!

[mellowtigger]

Breed. Yes, there's a solution I hadn't (and wouldn't have) thought of. :)

I just watch "Idiocracy" evolve right in front of me. I don't think Governor Pawlenty would look very convincing in wrestlers' tights, though. We need Governor Ventura back.