Well-Mannered Frivolity

Health Care

On Facebook I promised a post about my views on health care reform. I have drafted 6 posts and deleted each one of them. I have spent hours online researching statistics and plans. I know what we have now isn't working, but I also know that universal health care is not the answer either. I'm going to warn you in advance that this post is all over the place.

Here's what I know about my own situation. Our income and family size places us at under 150% the federal  poverty line according the this website http://dss.sc.gov/default.aspx. Our children qualify for Medicaid, but we don't use it because we  have pretty good health insurance for  which we pay about $70.00 per week. When we switched insurance plans 2 years ago 3 of us had moderately expensive preexisting conditions. Our current insurance plan gave us no trouble about accepting them.

Here are some stats I found--According to those arguing for universal health care there are about 46 million uninsured Americans.  That number can be broken down. About 10 million of the 46 million are illegal aliens who wouldn't qualify for government health care. That leaves 36 million.  About 18 million of those with out insurance have a household income of between $50,000-$75,000 per year. My family makes less than that, and we can afford insurance.  30% of our population already uses government assistance for health care.

The United States government has the outstanding ability to screw-up almost everything it gets involved in. Why should it be any different with health care? Seriously, look at the jam-up job they have done with education, for example.  Look at the Postal Service, the tax code, the Fed, the war on terror, need I go on?

Sen Max Baucus's Bill, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee's outline, the House Democratic Bill,  and President Obama's plan all appear to have mandates that you must have insurance or you will be fined. Under Baucus's bill the fines can run as high as  $3800.00. Who is that going to serve except the insurance companies. It seems to me that that will have the American citizens under corporate control. I can't find much on the House Republican Outline, but at least it doesn't carry a mandate.

Good ol' capitalism is lowering some health care costs. Walgreens and CVS are leading the way with developing health care clinics. You can see a master's degree educated nurse practitioner with minimal wait time right there at the pharmacy at about 1/2 the cost of a doctor's office visit. The quality of care is good enough the over 2/3s of the appointments are paid for by insurance. And how about Walmart? In 2006 Walmart lowered most generic medications to $4.00 for a 30 day supply. Target soon followed suit, as did several other pharmacies. In 2008 Walmart started offering hundreds of drugs for $10 for a 90 supply. The price wars continued. Now it is not unusual for most pharmacies to offer the most common antibiotics for free.

I think doctors need less regulation, less paperwork, less overhead, less management.  I think we should engage in tort reform and encourage competition. I think we need insurance reform that won't allow insurance companies to drop policies on sick patients. It's my opinion the the government will only make a bigger mess out of our current health care situation.

Wendy

The Sunday Salon 10/18/2009

Brad Thor is my new author this week. I have finished Blowback: A Thriller and am about 3/4 of the way through The Apostle: A Thriller. Thor's protagonist, former Navy SEAL Harvath, is to the war on terror what Jason Bourne was to the cold war. I'm not normally a war thriller type of girl,  but these books are so immensely readable that I can't put them down. I am constantly hounding my husband with weapons questions, because he was born with that male war knowledge collective unconscious gene. For instance, I thought RPG stood for Role Playing Game. Apparently, it stands for Rocket Propelled Grenade.  Okay, I'm just kidding about that one, but there is quite a bit of weapons terminology that I'm not really familiar with. I really think my husband would the Scot Harvath books, but all he wants to do is read Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books over and over again. It think he has read that series 4 or 5 times in the span of our marriage. But I digress.....

What I really like about Brad Thor is that he is unabashedly conservative. You just don't find that very often in a bestselling author. In fact, (go ahead and throw tomatoes at me now) I first heard about Thor on Glenn Beck. That's right, I said it, GLENN BECK.  Maybe next week I'll review Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government and lose readership completely. Bwhahaahaha!

Wendy

Education and empowerment

I was reading this article on contraception and climate change-http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10355608-54.html and I'm not quite sure what to think.  For starters the words 'population control' always raise a bit of a red flag for me. I realize the intentions behind this idea are good, but it can be  just a short jump from population control to China's one child policy to eugenics.

I don't think simply providing contraceptives to third world countries is the answer. The answer lies in education and empowerment of women and girls. Let's face it, Planned Parenthood could put a free contraceptive kiosk on every street corner in Kabul, but it wouldn't do any good. Under Taliban rule a woman is not allowed to leave her house without her husband or a male relative. How is she going to get these depo shots in the first place? And I seriously doubt the same men who think it is okay to publicly beat a woman for laughing in public are going to be lining up for free condoms. How are we going to get birth control to women who don't even have legal recourse when they are raped? When these same women can get sentenced to death by stoning for adultery because they were raped? When young girls can be sold or traded to pay off debt? While there is still female castration? What good is free birth control going to be for these women?  Education and empowerment are the keys.

Peace,

Wendy

The dark side of Facebook

I love Facebook. It's been great reconnecting with old friends, some dating all the way back to elementary school. It's fun reading status updates, and don't even get me started on Farmtown. Sometimes I even communicate with my brother on Facebook, and he lives just around the corner. But I think, in some ways, social networking is having a negative effect on society. Have you ever caught yourself saying something to someone on Facebook that you would never say to them face to face? I know I have. Sometimes status updates and comments can get a little mean spirited. I have especially noticed this trend among friends of friends. I have been both guilty of and a victim of this. It usually starts off with a friend making a status update of hot topic issue such as religion or politics. You make a comment. Then  your friend's friend proceeds to tell you what an idiot you are. It's easy to do that, because you don't know the person you are insulting. Is this what we have debased ourselves to? Being hateful to strangers just because they don't share the same beliefs we do? What has happened to civility, tolerance, and kindness? It's okay to disagree, just do so in a way that is not vitriolic and hateful.

Peace,

Wendy

On the complaint front-I complained about 90 times today. I blame in on the two pots (that right pots) of coffee I drank today.

Haircuts and head lice

I took three fifths of the clan for haircuts today. For the first time the boys got regular little boy haircuts. No spikes, mohawks, or faux-hawks for them anymore. They look so grown up. And Katherine. Poor Katherine inherited my hair. Our hair is extremely thick with a lot of body. I don't style my hair so much as I whip it into submission. The problem with Katherine is she doesn't care a lick about her hair. I have to remind her to brush it. She wants to be a scientist when she grows up. Well, she's got the Einstein hair already. You've got to admire a 13 year old girl who is more interested in science and politics than she is in hair, make-up and (ohthankyoulord) boys.

Taking the children to get a haircut is a bit of an ordeal for me. A couple of years ago we went through a year of on and off head lice. Every time I would eradicate the little buggers they would come back and bring more friends to the party. I think it is safe to say that I have a full-blown phobia of head lice--hold on a minute while I pause to scratch my head vigorously---Anyway, when I finally thought I gotten rid of the lice once and for all I ventured out to the hair salon. I'm sure you can see where this is going.....Bingo! The hairdresser found lice on James. That was the single most humiliating moment of my life. So now before haircuts I slather the haircutees heads down with conditioner and meticulously comb through their hair with a nit comb. As a matter of fact anytime one of my children sits next to me or sits in my lap I start picking through their hair with my fingers. Think they might grow up to be little neurotics?

 

Just in case you were wondering, here's how you get rid of head lice---Hopefully you will never need this info--

1. Wash the infested head with Neutrogena T-Gel Shampoo

2. Slather head with coconut oil and comb with nit comb and nit pick with fingers

3. Wash all bedding in hot water and dry on high heat--if multiple children are infested this is worth a trip to the laundry mat

4. Thoroughly vacuum beds, couches, chair--anywhere the child(ren) may have sat

5. Bag up all stuffed toys and dolls tightly for a minimum of three days.

Repeat steps 1 and 2 every night for about 5 days. Let them sleep with the coconut oil in their hair. Coconut oil loosens the nits from the hair shaft and dissolves the exoskeleton of the lice and nymphs. It can be found in most health food stores or the organic section of your local grocery store.

Don't waste your money on Rid or Nix type products. They are toxic, they don't work very well, and they are expensive.

Peace,

Wendy

My little hockey player

James has lost five of his baby teeth at once. I'm not sure how he is actually eating.

Peace,

Wendy

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Second Hand: A Novel by Michael Zadoorian

These days, everything is grist for the irony mill. If you start thinking too much about why you like black velvet paintings or panther TV lights or those Shriner dolls with the bobbing heads, you'll make yourself nuts.

Page 138

Peace,

Wendy

How to raise your hit count in two easy steps

First, title a post "mean people suck". I get at least 9 hits from Google searches for that one everyday. Before that my top hit for Google searches was "why don't I ever get invited to parties". Another popular one for me is "crazy cat lady". I'm not even kidding. Believe me, I wish I was. Especially about the crazy cat lady one. I totally understand the not getting invited to parties. Try having 5 children in 7 years and see how many social engagements you are suddenly not invited too. That's what I call a "fringe benefit" of having a large family. I tend toward the anti-social.

The other way to raise your hit count is to blog about THE JONAS BROTHERS. That time I blogged about the Jonas Brothers I got almost 100 more hits that I usually do. I also got a somewhat snarky comment when I mistakenly said that Nick had broken Taylor Swift's heart. Every idiot knows that was Joe. Sheesh, what was I thinking.

I'm going to go for the highest count ever. Here it goes--

Mean crazy cat lady people who suck The Jonas Brothers never get invited to parties.

The hit meter should go through the roof!

Peace,

Wendy

Complaint update-I only complained once today in spite of having a migraine headache. I'm beginning to wonder if I will ever make it 21 hours, let alone 21 days. Luckily I have enough plucky stick-to-a-tiv-ness (is that even a word) to  see this project through.

The Sunday Salon 10/11/09

I'll go ahead and admit it up front-I am totally addicted to Facebook. I update my status about 2 or three times per day, I love to read my friend's status updates, and I really enjoy playing with some of the apps such as Farmville. In fact, I'm not quite sure what I did with all my free time in my pre Facebook days. That made this weeks book,The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal, a great, fun read.  I'm on really sure how much of The Accidental Billionaires is true and you much is pure conjuncture. The author's note states that he based the account on "dozens of interviews, dozens of sources, and thousands of pages of documents, including several court proceedings." The author also states the that the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerburg, declined to speak with him.

Facebook was founded by two friends, Mark Zuckerburg and Eduardo Saverin, in a Harvard dorm room. The purpose of the website was for Harvard students to connect with each other over the internet. The deal was Zuckerburg, the brilliant hacker, would handle computer end, and Saverin would handle the business end. As Facebook moved to other colleges and grew more and more successful Zuckerburg left school to live in Silicon Valley and work on Facebook full time. Saverin decided to finish his degree at Harvard while working on drumming up advertisers for Facebook in New York. That's when things started to go south.

The Accidental Billionaires is not exactly The Great American Novel, in fact it reads more like an extra long People magazine article, but I think anyone who enjoys playing around on Facebook will find it to be an enjoyable read.

Peace,

Wendy

On the complaining front--I had to move my bracelet hair band once today. I said the 'S' word. I was involved in a near fatal lane change on Ashley-Phosphate Road. I tried to explain to Mary Jane that driving on Ashley Phosphate is exempt from the no complaining rule, but she didn't buy it.

Better than Beyonce