The Big White Lie

My reactions to the Senate and House health care bills currently being considered leave me feeling queasy.

Interesting that on CNN’s website the other day, Christmas Eve I think, the Health Care Bill story was listed under “Business” and not “Health.” I find this rather telling. We are not really talking about “nationwide care of health as healing” as much as “nationwide health care as business.”

The problem is not how to keep people well. That would be more easily solved. The problem is how to keep the insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, all their lobbyists and other assorted agents, and of course doctors & related companies from having to reduce their incomes. This is the business side of it.

The bottom line is not “How can I supply you with good service,” but “How can I supply you with good service and make you pay for it?”

There is no use in pretending it isn’t so. This is the basic premise of any business. Providing a product / service for a price. A restaurant strives to give full, friendly service along with good food. Naturally.

The opening line of any store employee, “May I help you?” intrinsically means “May I sell you something,” and unconsciously everyone knows this, but in our modern culture white lies are completely acceptable. Everyone lies sometimes. Even TV commercials.

But this health care bill will prove to be a Big White Lie, and I’m not so sure about the color.

This may well be a good plan for those who need remedial surgery or long term hospital care, but the line gets blurry after that point. The biggest losers are women who might need an abortion, and those who are not interested in allopathic medicine.

The whole medical-industrial complex relies on one philosophy: that if you are sick you will pay any amount of money to get well. As long as you live by that rule, you are susceptible to believe what you are told by various authority figures and supportive press and statistics.

If you are a person of independent mind who does your own research and has found your own source of health care outside the established norm, then that is well and good for you. Congratulations. However, if this bill passes, you will still be required to pay for it. Whether you want it or not. Whether you need it or not. If you do not pay up, you will be taxed for it by the IRS. In time, if you attempt to evade yearly, you may well be imprisoned for it eventually. At the very least you will be taxed all the more. Just like the seat belt fines for infringement.

The government is saying that doctors and drugs are the only authorities and you have to pay for them. No choice. Do you believe this? Think I’m telling a big white lie?

This is not freedom, and we need to understand this. I understand that seat belts save lives. It is a good idea to wear one, but I still don’t like being told by government that I have to wear a seat belt when I see motorcycle drivers on the road, completely exempted. It is a good, practical idea, but an unjust law.

So it is with health care. The Senate bill is a 2000 page white lie, a disclaimer designed to keep the public from suing anyone in the medical industry. It is also designed to ensure that you get all the prescription drugs and expensive medical procedures the industry can provide. That is where they make their money now, and where they will continue to make money.

Before we can have a national health care law, we need to be clearer on what constitutes real health care.

The medical-industrial complex is real clear on that.

Are You Buying This?

“In 2005 and 2006, MySpace was the king of the hill. That's in the past... Today, MySpace is still one of the most popular websites on the Internet (#11, according to Alexa, down from #6 in late 2007) but it's an aging giant…” (from an article by ebrage - for original. click here )

Remember Gloria Swanson as the aging beauty queen in “Sunset Blvd” desperately trying to hang on to her glory days?

Fast Forward. What if Gloria Swanson was now Julia Roberts in a modern remake? How about Scarlett Johanssen? Not aging after a generation of twenty years or so, but after only a few years worth of movies. Think that’s far fetched?

Things are changing, and I mean Fast. Not just Web Sites and Hollywood flavors of the week, but whole modes of doing business. And most of it is taking place on the Dub-yah. (not the old worn-out Dub-yah… you know, George). The other Dub-yah. The Internet.

Remember back? For a few years those long…long…(yawn)…ridiculously long ads containing essay-length casserole verbiage were the rage, so much so that certain ad gurus made BB bullseye huge profits showing copywriter wannabees how to make millions writing similar shtick. Perhaps the reasoning was to fool consumers into thinking that if the ad was long and involved then it must be intelligent and sincere, and therefore the product must be worth buying.

Now there’s a “new” strategy in town. (what else?) It has actually been around for a while but is only now starting to hit the mainstream consciousness in the form of lengthy tomes on bookstore shelves. It’s the Social Media Club. People get together on web sites like Facebook and Twitter and MySpace and Hi5 and pretend everyone is a neighbor on the other side of the fence. Everyone jabbers like old friends who aren’t really out to simply sell something. But eventually many are out to sell something.

Of course, one thing hasn’t changed in years and years. The Sellers. Remember the classic line? “But wait! There’s more! Now how much would you pay?...” The only real change in advertising is how many times a company can present that line in a fresh way, and that is the new challenge for Sellers in modern commerce. How to present that line to a consumer who is not only smarter and wiser now, thanks to the W, but has access to the same Internet resources as the Sellers?

This is a very interesting situation, especially in a very tough economy. Wise Buyers meet Savvy Sellers. What’s that theory about the irresistible force meeting an immovable object?

This morning (Dec. 12, 2009) according to one Google research tool, the top ten keyword searches revealed that people are looking for instant communication devices (eg. ipods & related accessories) …and also fashionable purses.

First Post Jitters...

Wouldn't you know it? It is common knowledge - at least I think it is - that while setting up a new account in anything you should probably not use the back button to make changes. But I did. Who knows what ghosts in the machine there are now...there now are...are there now...are there......are there...
...are there...
...are there...
...are there...

Future blogs will tell...

Welcome to My Brain...