All the comforts of home

£98 (200ish USD). FANTASTIC BAG!!!

The regent street apple store has a theatre

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Sometimes words fail me

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Kat

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The profit motive in healthcare

The central question surrounding the health care debate is so often undiscussed in the current townhall discussions surrounding healthcare reform. That question goes something like this:

Do you believe in the profit motive for companies that provide healthcare-related products?

There’s a strong case to be made on either side. Nothing happens without money. Nothing. Without a profit motive, wave after wave of AIDS drugs would have been impossible because the virus mutates so quickly and becomes unresponsive to medication in a relatively short amount of time. Companies like Pfizer and Eli-Lilly justify much of their high cost for their newest drugs on the vast amounts of money they pour into R&D, each one dreaming of creating the next Prozak or Viagra… or for that matter, the pill i’m on right now Januvia. Januvia is fantastic. I can honestly say it’s wonderful for people who are diagnosed diabetic. It is, however, without insurance $200 for 30 days supply. With my insurance discount, I pay $30/month, but still. $200 is a big chunk of change. And there are many people living with diabetes who can’t afford it and who are either under-insured or in no drug program that covers it.

There’s also a strong case to be made for altruism. It seems wrong to benefit financially because of someone else’s misfortune. It’s goes against our basic ideas of what is right and wrong in humanity. No one can argue that a health insurance company that makes 2 billion dollars in a given year should decline claims of legitimate policy holders who are in desperate need of care, and yet it happens every day. People are denied necessary care for any number of reasons and, yes, it is a national disgrace. But does it rise to the level of “right”? Do those policy holders have any right other than to leave and go get insurance with someone else (if they can)?

Does any American… Do all Americans have a RIGHT to healthcare? That is the question we should be asking, but no one is. This current debate consists of highly emotional (mostly women) at town hall meetings crying about how they “want their country back.”

No one has “taken” America. It is not dead nor does the current national discuss warrant any bloodshed, but it does warrant a good debate free of disruption. My prayer is for statesmen. On both sides of the debate, Dear Lord give us statesmen who can inspire us to think rationally about the course of our nation’s healthcare system for the next 100 years.

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Hanging at home watching true blood

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Sublety And style

It’s interesting to watch politics. At least I find it interesting. The science of ‘leading’ people is inexact and so very few do it well.

There’s the authoratarian path… Which works better in some venues than others. Politically George bush, Harvey Weinstein and steve jobs have nothing in common. But their leadership styles, from the outside looking in, are similar. It’s a very top-down, ‘it’s my way or else’ org chart. The generals at the top move the troops forward and the grunts on the bottom charge forward as ordered. It’s served Harvey and Steve well in business and their creative visions have both quite literally changed the world. And even for a while GWB’s authoratarian style seemed uniquely suited for the times. In the days after 9-11 the country was united behind it’s leadership and moved forward with confidence. The problem with the authoratian approach is that after a while it begins to wear on the system. If you don’t believe me, ask steve and harvey’s former employees. One former apple employee told me ‘he’s like plutonium: very powerful, but don’t stand too close.’

Indeed, by the second year of his second term, the country was so tired of Bush, they were wring phrases like ‘worst president ever’. Really? Ever? Really? Was he really the ‘worst’ or was it just his leadership style that made you not want to follow him?

That’s why it’s interesting to me the course President Obama is taking. He’s stated unequivocally that he believes in gay rights, but he hasn’t asked anyone to do anything they’re not comfortable doing. He believes we need real healthcare reform but hasn’t really forced a public option on the American taxpayers who are ultimately the ones who have to pay the bill. Some have faulted him for not shoving some ideaology down the throats of those people who disagree with him. And indeed he has really more of a mandate from the American people to govern than Bush or Clinton ever did. But the way he chooses to use his power is intriguing. He chooses to influence people to make good decisions. It’s fascinating in it’s subtlety and, in my opinion, will be studied for centuries to come. If, that is, it’s successful.

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The other verses

Most of us know the first verse, but haunting and poignant are the second, third and fourth verses. It’s easy to see why Congress voted this our national anthem.

On the shore dimly seen thro’ the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
‘T is the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their lov’d homes and the war’s desolation;
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause. it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

- From “The Star Spangled Banner” by Francis Scott Key

Happy Independence Day.

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