The Mad Sailor

Here we go again, another round of really really stupid ideas. I’m talking about immigration law. Some fathead in Arizona decided to trample the Constitution in order to catch a few more illegal aliens ….. meaning Mexicans. So lets all sober up and take a closer look at this issue.

Are you having a problem with illegal Canadians? …. NOOOOO! Are you having a problem with illegal Japanese? … NOOOOO! Are you having a problem with illegal Brits? ….. NOOOO!  … Just Mexicans?

Now why do you think that is? What is so different about Mexico? Could it be that life is so bad there that these people will brave all manor of hardship, danger, even death to get out of that country? Do you think dumb, childish, unconstitutional Arizonian laws will stop them after walking hundreds of miles through wilderness, paying shady characters to get them across the boarder and trusting to thieves and murderers to get them to America? …… NOOOOOO! They are telling you, through their actions, that they have nothing to lose. Do you think avoiding the police (something they already do) is much of a deterrent after all they went through just to get out of Mexico? NOOO? …. Me neither!

What we have here is another fine case of a politician doing something really stupid just to get his name in the paper. I hope the people of Arizona will brighten themselves up and oust the fool. I won’t mention his name. He’s already had too much publicity.

Now about Mexico. The immigration will stop only when life in Mexico becomes bearable. If you really want to stem the tide, fix Mexico. I’m not saying it would be easy to fix Mexico. No one has been able to bring real change to Mexico so far. But, that is the only way to solve your problem.

Oh yes, about those American born children of illegal immigrants …. THEY ARE AMERICANS! It says so in the constitution! If you don’t like it …. LEAVE!

So, it seems that Washington is heading down the road of mandatory insurance for healthcare. How will that work? How will you force the homeless to buy healthcare? What will you do if someone refuses,put them in jail, send them to Vietnam? What happens with pensions that include healthcare? Is that just lost? Is it turned into cash? And most important, how much money are the insurance companies pouring into this disaster.

Insurance in healthcare is a really bad idea. Let’s look at the history. We have insurance in healthcare because in WWII Washington froze wages, so industry offered healthcare in order to attract and keep employees. Healthcare costs got out-of-hand. So insurance companies stepped in to control the cost of healthcare. Since then we’ve lost house calls and doctors have been forced to spend less and less time per patient. Now a doctor cannot spend more than 8 minutes with you because that’s all the insurance will pay for. For the last 20 years insurance companies have been refusing coverage for pre-existing conditions. They won’t be able to do that in universal healthcare so ……guess what….. the premium will be going up …. and up. Employers have been offering less and less coverage because the cost keeps going up. And I hope you don’t think things will get better because the government is getting into the healthcare business. Yea right, when did that ever happen?

So what should we do? First outlaw healthcare insurance and malpractice lawsuits. Doctors make mistakes, but that should be handled by a much more efficient arbitration system. Then return doctors billing to a “pay what you can afford” system. It is historically cheaper for the patient and more lucrative for the providers. Insurance companies burn 30% of healthcare premiums as operations and profit. Malpractice insurance is so high in some fields that providers can no longer stay in business. Getting the insurance industry out of healthcare will cut healthcare costs in half, easily. The “pay what you can afford” system will reconnect providers and patients, a relationship that has been severely eroded by the healthcare insurance model.

But I’m just whistling in the wind. Nobody, but nobody will ever challenge the insurance industry. They are the 600 pound canary.

President Obama just took the oath of office and gave his speech. Lets take a moment to reflect on history.
George, what can I say? I’m glad to see the back of you. I don’t think ill of you. I don’t think you were evil, just inept.

Barack, I wish you well. I doubt that God could live up to the hype the news media has saddled you with. We all know you have a difficult task ahead. We all know you are just the president. You don’t really have the power to fix things without the help of congress. That’s kinda’ like having the inmates run the asylum.

During these precedings Tom Brokaw just had to make a dumb remark. He said the Woodstock generation, my generation, failed to change the world as promised. Well bonehead, as Barack himself put it 60 years ago his father couldn’t get served in a restaurant, now Barack is president. Is that a change? Who do you think did that? I was drafted in 1968, but that doesn’t happen anymore, does it? Young men no longer have to worry about military service unless that is what they want. Should we talk about women in the military? Is that change? Who did that?

There’s more bonehead, 60’s years ago a young girl’s future was measured by the husband she landed. Her best “job” prospect was to be a secretary. Today we are witnessing the second female Secretary of State and a female speaker of the house. If Obama didn’t win the democratic primary the 44′th president might well have been a woman. Is that a change? Who did that?

And hey Brokaw, in science, did you forget the digital revolution, the personal computer, the Internet. Is that a change? Who?? When I was born TV was black and white and about 9 inches in diameter. Today it’s color, digital and as big as you can afford.  Change? Then there’s the space station, Mars expeditions and so much more.  Change!? Who did that?? Medicine now has treatments and cures for diseases my father’s doctor didn’t even know existed. Change!!Hell Yes!! And we did it, bonehead!

Leave it to a reporter to live through the greatest Renaissance in the history of mankind and totally miss it!