Eccentric Flower talk:200907/Mixed Reactions
From Eccentric Flower
Comments on Eccentric Flower:200907/Mixed Reactions
I've known it for years too, but every so often I get riled up about it again.
-- 17:58, 29 July 2009 (BST)
I don't have time to watch Rowe's whole speech just now, but I've long thought that our country criminally devalues a lot of essential jobs. Manufacturing, repair, growing food, pruning back the plants, picking up the trash - it's all stuff that our society would collapse without, but it's hard work and there's no glamor to it. I think we really screwed ourselves with the immigrant economy. Entire vocations dried up, once it became common to pay immigrants next to nothing to do them. It was terrible for the US, and arguably didn't do the immigrants a lot of favors either. Then we outsourced the jobs that were left or replaced everybody with robots. I fear we really are reaching the point when there will just be NO jobs left in America... I can't even imagine what'll happen then. Things will have to change, in a big way.
-- 01:43, 30 July 2009 (BST)
That's already happened, Ursula. People who insist otherwise are in denial. This is why I'm of mixed minds about Rowe's speech. We have shifted from industrial, manufacturing, and agricultural emphasis to management, finances, services, and information as our job market. The blue collar is dead in America. It ain't coming back.
Among other reasons, Americans just got too damned expensive. We are almost too expensive for the white-collar markets now - the crushing weight of health care and the other things that workers now expect is sending some of the smaller and better companies into bankruptcy. This is part of what I was trying to say to Bunny the other day - expectations are going to have to get a lot lower for a lot of people, we are all going to have to get by with less, or the system is going to fall apart under its own weight. It may anyway, especially if we don't do something sane about health care and right fast.
Anyway, I digress. I'm not sure we should cry for the passing of the blue-collar jobs from this country. Personally, I think of it sort of as evolution, just like the three life-cycle stages of software companies, and it never never moves backward. I'm not saying the all-white-collar-all-the-time environment we have now is fabulous - especially not if you can't get into the information or finance worlds, in which case you end up with a service job (read: Wal-Mart). I'm not saying that doesn't stink on ice. I'm just saying that to wish we could go back to the blue-collar world, even a little bit, is probably escapist and unrealistic.
-- 03:59, 30 July 2009 (BST)
I'm right with you about having to get by with less, when it comes to health care covering things like tattoo removal and pedicures. The part that worries me, though, is someone the likes of Tom Daschle being in a position to influence my future health care availability. I was re-reading this the other day, because I had to find it to respond to a comment in an LJ post. It scared the crap out of me all over again, particularly the part about slowing research and innovation and the use of new drugs because they raise costs. This is arguably the most innovative and resourceful country in the entire world, and we're suppose to stifle ourselves because a cure for cancer costs too much?? And that formula for dividing the cost of a treatment by the number of years the patient might benefit? George Orwell would be proud.
I don't know the answers, but if euthanizing our seniors and letting our research go to hell is our future, then perhaps it's time for me to shuffle off this mortal coil, tap-dancing into the sunset. There has to be a better way. A pox on Tom Daschle.
-- 16:09, 30 July 2009 (BST)
I have sometimes wondered if we should just do away with underpaid immigrant labor, if we'd be better off with really strict penalties for anybody who was caught employing an illegal immigrant. If we couldn't just pay people pennies to mow our lawns or wash our dishes or paint our houses, if those jobs could only be done for the legal minimum wage or better, maybe that would actually turn things around. Either you clean your own house, or you pay somebody a real wage to do it, or it doesn't get cleaned.
-- 07:21, 1 August 2009 (BST)
I'm late to the discussion, but in case anyone's still reading... I recommend this article from Peter Singer regarding cost-effectiveness and healthcare reform. Bunny42: you might find it especially interesting in view of the link you posted above.
-- 18:02, 3 August 2009 (BST)
Well, ya know, I'm probably not the right one to ask, because my best friend, who is 63, was diagnosed almost six years ago with Stage IV metastatic colon cancer to the liver. It's confined to her liver, but has been ruled inoperable. She's been on chemo for all of that time, at a cost of untold hundreds of thousands of dollars. But during that time, Avastin, Herbitux and Oxaliplatin in combination with other existing drugs have been discovered and perfected. Her condition has benefitted greatly from these discoveries, and all she needed was the time for them to be formulated, tested and approved. Time. It's the big factor. Her doctors tell her there are at least two more new drugs in the pipeline that could be approved any day. Recently, M.D. Anderson in Texas began a new infusion process with some existing drugs, which is having remarkable success. Cheryl's tumors have responded favorably to similar infusion here in Florida, to the point that she could become operable after all. All this while, she has been living a normal life, caring for her family and continuing with her daily activities. If rationing had been in place when she was diagnosed, before the discovery of all those new drugs and treatments, well, she'd be dead by now. At that time, statistically her chances of survival to five years were a mere 8%. She wouldn't have qualified.
So yeah, you can talk all you want about rationing, but when it comes down to those near and dear to you, nuh uh. Find some other way.
My 90-year-old mom just had her pacemaker battery replaced surgically. She's basically healthy, just has an irregular heartbeat. Who decides if she's too old to qualify for such treatment? This is a slippery slope that I'm not willing to contemplate seriously. What's the point of having health care if it only applies to those with government approval? I realize that all aspects of the problem need to be examined, but this is one solution I consider totally unacceptable, and, fortunately, it appears I'm far from alone in that.
It is worth noting that Cheryl (and I) have group health insurance we were able to keep and maintain after leaving Federal government service. It's good coverage that we worked many, many years to earn. I don't want to see it messed with. On the other hand, my SO has no health coverage of any kind. I shudder to think what would happen, should he have an accident or catch some icky disease. Medicaid, I guess. That's a sobering thought. So don't conclude that I'm only looking at this problem from one aspect. But I'm still not willing to forfeit availability of new technologies and treatments--for anybody--in order to fund health care for all, or worse, nationalized, single payer insurance. Makes my blood run cold. First, deal with the horrendous costs of malpractice litigation and frivolous lawsuits. Also tackle Medicare fraud. Enforce what's already in existence. Don't, DON'T stifle innovation and research. Kthxbye.
-- 20:40, 3 August 2009 (BST)
ProfRobert:
Have you considered investing in some Depends? You could have your cake and eat it, too, as it were.
I've long known BMI is BS. If I weighed what it said I should for my height, I'd look like I'd walked out of a concentration camp. (That said, I do need to drop 75 lbs. or so, but even then BMI would consider me overweight.)
-- 17:50, 29 July 2009 (BST)