Today is the solstice and the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. Heading into light for the next six months.
It’s an auspicious day to make aspirations. May everyone’s positive aspirations come to fruition now and in the future. That’s my aspiration for the day.
I just realized that I should have put my comments about health insurance here rather than as a continuation of my comments about Canada being a defenseless or perhaps to put in differently an indefensible country. Oh wait indefensible has two meanings. Oh wait they both apply to Canada so it does not matter. Oh wait this is now a completely new comment. I better post this one first and then place my comment about health insurance
My version of good health insurance.
1.) it is mandatory. It is paid for out of your payroll taxes just like social security.
2.) if you are unemployed the government pays.
3.) The payment is a percentage of your pay not a flat fee.
4.) The payment goes to non governmental insurance companies that have to be registered as non profit companies. Each state or province has to provide the seed money to start up such a company. But anyone can enter the market. A worker can choose any company they want.
5.) Health insurance companies can have networks. But they can not enforce that a company network be used. But that would probably help save the patient money on their 20% share. And networks can give preferential treatment to their insurance company members.
6.) If the patients 20% comes to more than 10,000 dollars per year then the company pays 100% of all medical bills.
7.) If a family has more than 10,000 in medical payments per year then tax deductions or tax credits would kick in.
8.) if a family has less than 10,000 Euros in medical payments but the payments are more than a certian percent of the family income then tax deductions or tax credits would kick in.
9.) A medical insurance company can not refuse to pay for treatment. It can refuse to pay for charges that are above the usual charges for the treatment.
10.) Both employees of the government DAs office and of the medical insurance companies would be allowed access to doctors files at any time with out a warrant.
I mean that the performance and proffessional behavior of doctors is subject to review or oversight by both external systems.
11.) No employee of a medical insurance company is allowed to own stocks or bonds in a pharmasutical company.
12,) (Just in case) No employee of a Pharmasutical company can work even part time for a medical insurance company or be involved in any position of oversight in such a company.
13.) if someone does not have any medical bills for the entire year they get a partial refund.
14.) There will be no deductibles. The insurance company has to pay 80% starting with the first bill. I do not think that deductibles are a good idea becuase that is a deterent for someone to see a doctor when they should see a doctor. Yes the 20% copayment is also a deterent but it is a deterent that is only 1/5 the size. Co payments are neccessary to encourage people to live a safe and healthy life.
15.) Engaging in certian behaviors must be declared to the Insurance company and these behaviors will cause an increase in the premium that a person pays.
1,) Football or Rugby
1.) Motor cycle riding
1.) Boxing
2.) Auto Racing
3.) Boat Racing
4.) Sky diving
5.) Rock Climbing
6.) Mountain Biking
7.) Scuba Diving and Spear Fishing
8.) Smoking
9.) Use of “recreational” drugs. Yes many but not all recreational drugs should be legalized but that does not mean that these drugs are safe. Prison is not the place for recreational drug users. But they have to pay the costs of the risks that they take. Non users should not have to pay for their often reckless behavior.
10.) This spafe is saved for future use.
I forgot to make my 2 in 1 comment about health care.
There has to be a completely different health care system for hockey players over the age of 80 years old, or maybe even 75 old. I guess it would be called the Canadian Klaus.
I am in a town in Mexico, Guanajuato, where the mines are run by Canadian companies. The local kids sneak into the mines at night and steal silver ore. The company has hired private security to go after these kids. I have seen these guards. They look like Rambo and have helicopters to patrol the hills and look for these boys.They have total impunity and regularly shoot and kill these locals.We are talking about 35 dollars worth of silver being as much as they would ever be able to carry out of the tunnels by hand.
Healthcare needs to be Single Payer, Nationalized Health Care managed by the Federal Government.
Medical, Dental, and Vision, all the same system.
No Private Insurance.
Everyone uses the same system, whether rich or poor.
All current Employer Contributions are normalized into the employee’s normal compensation.
Everyone then pays 15% of their income into the National Healthcare.
No income limit on the 15%. From Dollar One all the way up to Billions of Dollars.
Subsidized by an annual Wealth Tax on all Wealth above $1 Million Dollars; this ensures tax dodging millionaires and billionaires who live off of “wealth loans” pay something into the system. 1% or whatever would equal ~15% of their “income.”
The Medical Education System is Nationalized. Doctors, nurses, all such staff are provided Federal loans. They go where they are assigned. If they work in the US under the Nationalized Health Care, those loans are slowly forgiven. If they leave the US system, they have to pay back the loans.
No more For-Profit Hospitals, Clinics, Pharmeceutical Companies, etc. No more making a profit off the suffering and death of others.
Existing For-Profit Health Insurance, Hospitals, Clinics, Pharmeceutical Companies, etc., sell out their structures, patents, and so forth to Non-Profit State-Owned entities. They get a moderate return until the costs are repaid.
They can then take their wealth and invest it in something productive.
Of course, that would take a complete re-working of the entire Financialized Economy, but that is another issue altogether…
That many people cannot wrap their propaganda-soaked brains around such a basic reform is one reason we never get anywhere tussling over “the public option.”
The horrifying terrorism incident at the Christmas market in Magdeburg has become a propaganda football as the alleged perpetrator, a Saudi emigrant psychiatrist, has been identified as an anti-Islamist AfD supporter.
We will probably never learn anything truthful about this individual’s insanity, but the insanity of post-neoliberal propaganda is on full display in this alleged case of up-is-down demographic shorthand instant myth-making. Can this actually work to justify political repression of the nationalist or populist “right”? Apparently the powers-that-be are trying it out.
GrimJim, there is a reason your excellent proposals cannot garner enough support to pass Congress and be signed into law. Insurance offices and healthcare facilities are one of the few places left in which a working-class young adult can achieve a (relatively) well paid, by working class standards, job with reasonable investment of time and money. Until working class employment is expanded in the USA–I think we need a new public works program, employment at union scale wages, employment preference for citizens only–the folks who have those insurance and health care jobs, and the families they help support, are going to cling to the present system.
I paid $12,000 for a daughter to be qualified as a Licensed Practical Nurse in community college, a nine months program, and now she makes a salary in the low 6 figures. She manages to have a nice home, keep the bills paid, maintain a recent model auto, and have a few extras for her kids. Working class voters hearing the Progressive candidate going on about Medicare For All, are saying to themselves, that’s my or my child’s good job threatened.
I think we both know that if some sort of national health service were ever established,
“fiscally conservative” congresspersons would make sure it was underfunded, with plenty of opportunities for good ol boy and gal grift baked in.
If someone told you high cholesterol levels are NOT harmful what would you think?
If someone told you low cholesterol levels are harmful what would you think?
What would be the basis of your thoughts on the topic?
The Hunt 2 prospective 10 year long study of 50,000 people found that overall high cholesterol levels were associated with lower all cause mortality. For women all cause mortality continued to fall with higher and higher cholesterol levels where with men the relationship was more of a U shape(1).
Likewise another 15 year long study of almost 150,000 people found the same thing. IE: that high cholesterol levels are associated with lower all cause mortality(1).
Another prospective study that lasted around a decade and contained 12+ million people found similar results.
“The TC range associated with the lowest mortality was 210–249 mg/dL” Likewise, an extremely high level of 260-280 mg/dL was associated with lower mortality rates than levels under 180 (2).
Who benefits from the false belief that high cholesterol is harmful? Likewise, who is directly harmed by it?
An Ode To Science, From “Song of Two Worlds” By: Alan Lightman:
Awake —
What are these quick shots of warmth,
Fractals of forests
That wind through my limbs?
Fragrance of olive and salt taste of skin,
Razz-tazz and clackety sound?
Figures and shapes slowly wheel past my view,
Villas and deserts, distorted faces,
Children, my children —
Distant, the pink moons of my feet.
What rules do they follow?
I think movement, they wondrously move,
Moons flutter and shake.
I probe the hills and the ruts of my face —
Now I grow large, now
I grow small, as the waves
Of sensation break over my shore.
There, a gnarled tree I remember,
A stone vessel, the curve of a hill.
What is the hour?
Some silence still sleeps
In my small sleeping room —
Is it end or beginning?
I take up my pen, dry for some years.
What should I write?
What should I think?
I knock on the door of the universe.
Here, this small villa, this table, this pen.
I ask the universe: What? and Why?
Now weakened, I must remake the world,
One grain at a time.
I knock on the door of the universe, asking:
What makes the light of the stars?
What makes the heat of my flesh?
What makes the tear shape of rain?
So much I’ve lost,
I have nothing
Except a fierce hunger
To fathom this world.
Naked, I knock on the door,
Wearing only my questions.
Great Newton, you hid in your rooms,
Outcast like me,
Careless of meals, stockings untied,
Drinker of rosewater, olive oil, beeswax —
You found the force
Between planets and sun,
Pattern of cosmic attraction,
Heard clearly the music of spheres.
You gauged the distance to stars
And the vast rooms of space,
Which were naught to the space of your mind.
You struck the door of the universe.
What raging night seized you
And screamed that the world
Must be number and rule?
This is the world of the ticking of clocks,
Menses of women and tides
Of the moon. Orbits of planets,
The swing of the pendulum, spin of the earth,
Cycles of seasons.
This is the cosmos of time and of space,
And of light rays that travel twelve billion years,
And the whale-raptured sprawl of the galaxies.
But is this not also the cosmos of life,
That rare cluster of atoms and forms,
A few grains on the beach of nonlife?
One thousand questions, and each gives
An answer, which then forms a question.
The questions and answers will meld with each other
Like colors of light,
Like the light rays that once crossed the space
Of the cosmos
And rest now in the small warmth of a hand.
I knock on the doors of the universe,
Asking: What makes the swirl
Of ghazali love songs?
And the parallel singing of loss?
And the choice to live life alone?
I surrender my calipers, rules, and clocks,
Microscopes, diodes, transistors,
Glass flasks. For how can I measure
The stroke of a passion? Or dissect a grief
With the digits of pi?
Thus, I stand naked, with nothing
Except a fierce hunger to fathom this world,
To embark on this road
Without length without breadth.
Thanks Chuck.
That’s some inspired down home spiritual writing right there.
Overtones of Blake and Ginsberg with a twist.
First attracted to Ian’s blog by this kind of down home spirituality with a literary overlay.
The political stance too.
I heard about Trump’s threat to invade Panama. Could this be a sign of Trump going just a little bit apeshit under pressure from a rising tide of adulation for President Musk?
If so, people should keep up the pressure, increase it and pour it on. Perhaps enough President Musk worship can make Trump completely delaminate and decompensate live on TV or at one of his rallies.
What if thousands and then millions of people asked the question on TwiXtter ( if President Musk allows them to) . . . ” Trump threatens to invade Panama. Is President Musk okay with that?”
Happy Christmass-overlaid-on-the-Solstice to everyone!
Regarding Trump, and why he does things; while I don’t claim to understand what’s happening – who’s zooming who, who’s a tripple agent, or is it quadrouple? – but it’s helpfull to keep in mind that he’s not a duffus, listen to what is actually being said.
Here’s a good example – a John Cambell vid on autism rates 4x’ing in 20 years, which is kinda old news, but good to see a new study… anyway, he plays a couple clips of Trump taking questions in regards autism, and pesticides.
It’s wild – when has any prez talked like this about these topics? Again, what’s going on really?, but you can see why people want more of that.
mago
Today is the solstice and the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. Heading into light for the next six months.
It’s an auspicious day to make aspirations. May everyone’s positive aspirations come to fruition now and in the future. That’s my aspiration for the day.
Curt Kastens
I just realized that I should have put my comments about health insurance here rather than as a continuation of my comments about Canada being a defenseless or perhaps to put in differently an indefensible country. Oh wait indefensible has two meanings. Oh wait they both apply to Canada so it does not matter. Oh wait this is now a completely new comment. I better post this one first and then place my comment about health insurance
Curt Kastens
My version of good health insurance.
1.) it is mandatory. It is paid for out of your payroll taxes just like social security.
2.) if you are unemployed the government pays.
3.) The payment is a percentage of your pay not a flat fee.
4.) The payment goes to non governmental insurance companies that have to be registered as non profit companies. Each state or province has to provide the seed money to start up such a company. But anyone can enter the market. A worker can choose any company they want.
5.) Health insurance companies can have networks. But they can not enforce that a company network be used. But that would probably help save the patient money on their 20% share. And networks can give preferential treatment to their insurance company members.
6.) If the patients 20% comes to more than 10,000 dollars per year then the company pays 100% of all medical bills.
7.) If a family has more than 10,000 in medical payments per year then tax deductions or tax credits would kick in.
8.) if a family has less than 10,000 Euros in medical payments but the payments are more than a certian percent of the family income then tax deductions or tax credits would kick in.
9.) A medical insurance company can not refuse to pay for treatment. It can refuse to pay for charges that are above the usual charges for the treatment.
10.) Both employees of the government DAs office and of the medical insurance companies would be allowed access to doctors files at any time with out a warrant.
I mean that the performance and proffessional behavior of doctors is subject to review or oversight by both external systems.
11.) No employee of a medical insurance company is allowed to own stocks or bonds in a pharmasutical company.
12,) (Just in case) No employee of a Pharmasutical company can work even part time for a medical insurance company or be involved in any position of oversight in such a company.
13.) if someone does not have any medical bills for the entire year they get a partial refund.
14.) There will be no deductibles. The insurance company has to pay 80% starting with the first bill. I do not think that deductibles are a good idea becuase that is a deterent for someone to see a doctor when they should see a doctor. Yes the 20% copayment is also a deterent but it is a deterent that is only 1/5 the size. Co payments are neccessary to encourage people to live a safe and healthy life.
15.) Engaging in certian behaviors must be declared to the Insurance company and these behaviors will cause an increase in the premium that a person pays.
1,) Football or Rugby
1.) Motor cycle riding
1.) Boxing
2.) Auto Racing
3.) Boat Racing
4.) Sky diving
5.) Rock Climbing
6.) Mountain Biking
7.) Scuba Diving and Spear Fishing
8.) Smoking
9.) Use of “recreational” drugs. Yes many but not all recreational drugs should be legalized but that does not mean that these drugs are safe. Prison is not the place for recreational drug users. But they have to pay the costs of the risks that they take. Non users should not have to pay for their often reckless behavior.
10.) This spafe is saved for future use.
Curt Kastens
I forgot to make my 2 in 1 comment about health care.
There has to be a completely different health care system for hockey players over the age of 80 years old, or maybe even 75 old. I guess it would be called the Canadian Klaus.
Joan
Happy winter solstice everyone! I’m looking forward to getting more sunlight!
joe
I am in a town in Mexico, Guanajuato, where the mines are run by Canadian companies. The local kids sneak into the mines at night and steal silver ore. The company has hired private security to go after these kids. I have seen these guards. They look like Rambo and have helicopters to patrol the hills and look for these boys.They have total impunity and regularly shoot and kill these locals.We are talking about 35 dollars worth of silver being as much as they would ever be able to carry out of the tunnels by hand.
mago
Why do writers write?
Because they love what they do
And that’s a haiku
We write to persuade
to inform and entertain
That’s a haiku too
Five seven five form
We follow it naturally
Like seasons changing
Life’s a haiku
A simple way to live and be
A benefit to all
The art of cooking
Combines the five elements
Skillful means and joy
Darkness turns to light
Confusion dawns as wisdom
A solstice haiku
Now the time has come
To say good night sleep tight
Count the jumping sheep
Ciao ciao for now . . .
GrimJim
Healthcare needs to be Single Payer, Nationalized Health Care managed by the Federal Government.
Medical, Dental, and Vision, all the same system.
No Private Insurance.
Everyone uses the same system, whether rich or poor.
All current Employer Contributions are normalized into the employee’s normal compensation.
Everyone then pays 15% of their income into the National Healthcare.
No income limit on the 15%. From Dollar One all the way up to Billions of Dollars.
Subsidized by an annual Wealth Tax on all Wealth above $1 Million Dollars; this ensures tax dodging millionaires and billionaires who live off of “wealth loans” pay something into the system. 1% or whatever would equal ~15% of their “income.”
The Medical Education System is Nationalized. Doctors, nurses, all such staff are provided Federal loans. They go where they are assigned. If they work in the US under the Nationalized Health Care, those loans are slowly forgiven. If they leave the US system, they have to pay back the loans.
No more For-Profit Hospitals, Clinics, Pharmeceutical Companies, etc. No more making a profit off the suffering and death of others.
Existing For-Profit Health Insurance, Hospitals, Clinics, Pharmeceutical Companies, etc., sell out their structures, patents, and so forth to Non-Profit State-Owned entities. They get a moderate return until the costs are repaid.
They can then take their wealth and invest it in something productive.
Of course, that would take a complete re-working of the entire Financialized Economy, but that is another issue altogether…
bruce wilder
Make for-profit health insurance a felony.
That many people cannot wrap their propaganda-soaked brains around such a basic reform is one reason we never get anywhere tussling over “the public option.”
bruce wilder
The horrifying terrorism incident at the Christmas market in Magdeburg has become a propaganda football as the alleged perpetrator, a Saudi emigrant psychiatrist, has been identified as an anti-Islamist AfD supporter.
We will probably never learn anything truthful about this individual’s insanity, but the insanity of post-neoliberal propaganda is on full display in this alleged case of up-is-down demographic shorthand instant myth-making. Can this actually work to justify political repression of the nationalist or populist “right”? Apparently the powers-that-be are trying it out.
Mary Bennet
GrimJim, there is a reason your excellent proposals cannot garner enough support to pass Congress and be signed into law. Insurance offices and healthcare facilities are one of the few places left in which a working-class young adult can achieve a (relatively) well paid, by working class standards, job with reasonable investment of time and money. Until working class employment is expanded in the USA–I think we need a new public works program, employment at union scale wages, employment preference for citizens only–the folks who have those insurance and health care jobs, and the families they help support, are going to cling to the present system.
I paid $12,000 for a daughter to be qualified as a Licensed Practical Nurse in community college, a nine months program, and now she makes a salary in the low 6 figures. She manages to have a nice home, keep the bills paid, maintain a recent model auto, and have a few extras for her kids. Working class voters hearing the Progressive candidate going on about Medicare For All, are saying to themselves, that’s my or my child’s good job threatened.
I think we both know that if some sort of national health service were ever established,
“fiscally conservative” congresspersons would make sure it was underfunded, with plenty of opportunities for good ol boy and gal grift baked in.
Oakchair
If someone told you high cholesterol levels are NOT harmful what would you think?
If someone told you low cholesterol levels are harmful what would you think?
What would be the basis of your thoughts on the topic?
The Hunt 2 prospective 10 year long study of 50,000 people found that overall high cholesterol levels were associated with lower all cause mortality. For women all cause mortality continued to fall with higher and higher cholesterol levels where with men the relationship was more of a U shape(1).
Likewise another 15 year long study of almost 150,000 people found the same thing. IE: that high cholesterol levels are associated with lower all cause mortality(1).
Another prospective study that lasted around a decade and contained 12+ million people found similar results.
“The TC range associated with the lowest mortality was 210–249 mg/dL” Likewise, an extremely high level of 260-280 mg/dL was associated with lower mortality rates than levels under 180 (2).
Who benefits from the false belief that high cholesterol is harmful? Likewise, who is directly harmed by it?
(1) https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2012/09/25/silence-was-the-stern-reply/
(2) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-38461-y#Sec7
KT Chong
On the West vs. China in Africa, on why the West has missed the opportunities in Africa:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmkdtloCSMQ
An interview with Busani Ngcaweni, director general of National School of Government in South Africa.
A lot of interesting information and perspectives.
KT Chong
Trump has just threatened to invade Panama:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3aEt4A6aiU
Chuck Mire
An Ode To Science, From “Song of Two Worlds” By: Alan Lightman:
Awake —
What are these quick shots of warmth,
Fractals of forests
That wind through my limbs?
Fragrance of olive and salt taste of skin,
Razz-tazz and clackety sound?
Figures and shapes slowly wheel past my view,
Villas and deserts, distorted faces,
Children, my children —
Distant, the pink moons of my feet.
What rules do they follow?
I think movement, they wondrously move,
Moons flutter and shake.
I probe the hills and the ruts of my face —
Now I grow large, now
I grow small, as the waves
Of sensation break over my shore.
There, a gnarled tree I remember,
A stone vessel, the curve of a hill.
What is the hour?
Some silence still sleeps
In my small sleeping room —
Is it end or beginning?
I take up my pen, dry for some years.
What should I write?
What should I think?
I knock on the door of the universe.
Here, this small villa, this table, this pen.
I ask the universe: What? and Why?
Now weakened, I must remake the world,
One grain at a time.
I knock on the door of the universe, asking:
What makes the light of the stars?
What makes the heat of my flesh?
What makes the tear shape of rain?
So much I’ve lost,
I have nothing
Except a fierce hunger
To fathom this world.
Naked, I knock on the door,
Wearing only my questions.
Great Newton, you hid in your rooms,
Outcast like me,
Careless of meals, stockings untied,
Drinker of rosewater, olive oil, beeswax —
You found the force
Between planets and sun,
Pattern of cosmic attraction,
Heard clearly the music of spheres.
You gauged the distance to stars
And the vast rooms of space,
Which were naught to the space of your mind.
You struck the door of the universe.
What raging night seized you
And screamed that the world
Must be number and rule?
This is the world of the ticking of clocks,
Menses of women and tides
Of the moon. Orbits of planets,
The swing of the pendulum, spin of the earth,
Cycles of seasons.
This is the cosmos of time and of space,
And of light rays that travel twelve billion years,
And the whale-raptured sprawl of the galaxies.
But is this not also the cosmos of life,
That rare cluster of atoms and forms,
A few grains on the beach of nonlife?
One thousand questions, and each gives
An answer, which then forms a question.
The questions and answers will meld with each other
Like colors of light,
Like the light rays that once crossed the space
Of the cosmos
And rest now in the small warmth of a hand.
I knock on the doors of the universe,
Asking: What makes the swirl
Of ghazali love songs?
And the parallel singing of loss?
And the choice to live life alone?
I surrender my calipers, rules, and clocks,
Microscopes, diodes, transistors,
Glass flasks. For how can I measure
The stroke of a passion? Or dissect a grief
With the digits of pi?
Thus, I stand naked, with nothing
Except a fierce hunger to fathom this world,
To embark on this road
Without length without breadth.
mago
Thanks Chuck.
That’s some inspired down home spiritual writing right there.
Overtones of Blake and Ginsberg with a twist.
First attracted to Ian’s blog by this kind of down home spirituality with a literary overlay.
The political stance too.
different clue
I heard about Trump’s threat to invade Panama. Could this be a sign of Trump going just a little bit apeshit under pressure from a rising tide of adulation for President Musk?
If so, people should keep up the pressure, increase it and pour it on. Perhaps enough President Musk worship can make Trump completely delaminate and decompensate live on TV or at one of his rallies.
What if thousands and then millions of people asked the question on TwiXtter ( if President Musk allows them to) . . . ” Trump threatens to invade Panama. Is President Musk okay with that?”
capelin
Happy Christmass-overlaid-on-the-Solstice to everyone!
Regarding Trump, and why he does things; while I don’t claim to understand what’s happening – who’s zooming who, who’s a tripple agent, or is it quadrouple? – but it’s helpfull to keep in mind that he’s not a duffus, listen to what is actually being said.
Here’s a good example – a John Cambell vid on autism rates 4x’ing in 20 years, which is kinda old news, but good to see a new study… anyway, he plays a couple clips of Trump taking questions in regards autism, and pesticides.
It’s wild – when has any prez talked like this about these topics? Again, what’s going on really?, but you can see why people want more of that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr4xo2Or_7o