Decency Clouded in Obfuscation

First Posted Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Let’s begin with a fictional amalgam of life lost: Frank and Chuck have been pals since 1979. They met at work. Frank is an electrician and Chuck a private contractor. They met on the job-site in Napa Valley where they each played their roles in building a new country club. They struck up a strong friendship. They were both Raiders fans. Both were just starting families. Franks wife Barb worked as an appraiser at an antiques shop. Chuck’s wife Lucy handled the books for Chuck. They would take turns hosting a Bar-B-Que every month. They went bowling at Bel-Air Bowl every Tuesday. And would be sure to catch the Raider/Bronco game every year. Chuck was a Little League Coach. Frank liked to hunt. Chuck had a back injury 1999 when he was building a deck in his backyard –  a 16 foot long 2″ x 6″ slipped from a rafter and came down hard on his shoulder, breaking his clavicle and seizing his back. He was in the hospital for 3 months and had a series of operations – some worked some didn’t. Frank and his wife Barb would stop by and visit Chuck’s family to help with the dishes, do small repairs on the household and just give Chuck and Lucy and their 2 kids Little Charley (8) and Ray (6) some company and ease their burden.

A few years pass. More surgery. A few more years and a building boom aggravates Chuck’s back again. Chuck again recovers partially with the help of his insurance but after the many procedures and lost time from work finds himself in debt over $200,000.  He had $24,365 in savings. They would work out a payment plan with the hospital. Chuck was hardly the contractor he was before the injury, but he bared down and worked through the pain. Usually after work was over he would go to Tom Fools to meet Frank for a drink and play some foosball, but for the last 8 months he had to come home to hot bath with salts that Lucy would start as a regiment to combine with dinner for the kids. Everyday hurt a little more. Their insurance company also started to deny claims as of late – pre-existing condition – and Lucy couldn’t tell Chuck. She handled the finances and she knew that if she told Chuck that he would probably work himself to death to honor his debt. One day Barb stops by with a Bundt cake and Lucy is crying in the garage. Lucy tells Barb she has diabetes. They no longer have any insurance. Chuck’s policy and by extension the family policy had been cancelled. Barb knells beside her and reassures that everything will be fine. That Frank and her will be there for them and this to will be yet one of another of life’s challenges that they will face together.

A few months pass. Chuck has missed the last 2 BBQ’s. Frank picks up the phone to call him. “The number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please, check the…” Frank tells Barb he’s going to Chuck’s to bring back their weed-whacker, and maybe see if they’ll take some money to turn on the phone. He pulls up to the driveway. No one’s home. A foreclosure posting is on the front door. 2 months later Barb gets a email from Lucy. They have moved into her brother Luke’s house in Texas and are staying in the family room. She say’s that Chuck has found some part-time work for a landlord as a handyman at $12 an hour and the local church is praying for them every week. She says that they have found some assistance with her diabetes at the Salvation Army.  Lucy starts to tear-up and asks Chuck if he wants to talk to Frank? Chuck is too embarrassed and signals to her that he’s not here right now. Lucy says that she has to go and will call soon. Barb has their number and she’ll mail a $2,000 check from a dwindling mutual fund to help Chuck and Lucy get back on feet. The money will last 2 months as more than half will be spent on treatment and prescriptions.

Too much drama? Are you sure? What would you wager?

When’s the best time to take care of your citizenry? When you need it most? Before you need it bad? When it’s affordable? Insurance, indemnity, protection, savings, prevention: these seem to be the strong course to a sensible solutions that each of us will no doubt need, but they are by no means free. So you have to balance the cost versus service. What is the price of your life? Of his life? And what about hers? How much care is within the realm of decency? Currently, it isn’t really a consideration by any of the health care giants. Big Health costs way more beyond inflation every year. The motivating factor for healthcare insurer is profit and that is the status quo – they really couldn’t give a shit about your well being or quality of life beyond the point that they become responsible for your care – and there’s no other reason for their effort.

Business is war. War is not healthy.

The subject of Insurance Agent; Debonaire, charming, and engrossing? Dangerous? Or boring, dull, over-protective, panicky guardian, who carries a clipboard, fills-out forms, bores you at reunions, files claims and sends via courier a notice of suspension of coverage? You see the advertisement about the friendly insurance agent delivering bottled water after a hurricane talking about how that’s just what they do: ‘Take care of your community.’ Someone get me a shovel. A really big shovel. They do it because they want to have a charming little PR story that demonstrates the benefit of having peace of mind – someone to watch out for your best interests. Have you ever noticed that when the shit comes down on insurance, say a hurricane, tornado, plane crash, or earthquake) that they magically become broke. That’s because most of what insurance does is move paper and find reasons to ‘not’ do something. If it makes money then it is good. Claims filed are bad. If that profitability is threatened then it is bad and insert derogatory anti-American ad hominem. Claims are to be not honored and processed in a gauntlet of departments, actuaries, corporate contract negotiation provisions, service cuts, rising premiums; inserted into a serpentine of paperwork, files, re-filing, and addressing of care coverage and procedural costs. Pacific Care holds the dubious distinction of not honoring a whopping 39% of claims filed last year.

Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.
-Stephen Leacock

The 10 Secrets to Successful Advertising:
1) Repetition
2) Repetition
3) Repetition… need I continue?

So what is Health Reform? Why do people feel they need a gun at a Health Care Reform Town Hall Meeting? A minority is often at odds with a majority for fear the majority will abuse it’s power and subjugate the minority. The cha-cha of partisan democracy. Liberal up then Conservative down. Conservative up then Liberal down. Those guys and then these guys and then those guys again. They said, he said, is what she said. ‘Liberals are foolish with money.’ ‘Conservatives steal it.’ ‘Democrats are corrupt.’ ‘Republicans are bought and paid for.’ At play like waves on a close-ended aqueduct constantly rippling and splashing from one side of the balance scale to the other. Then there’s the opinion at mass making it’s arguments for or against. ‘Yes, we will go to war.’ ‘No, we will not treat the sick.’ ‘Yes, we will maximize profit.’ ‘No, we will not shelter the vagrant.’ ‘Yes, we are good.’ ‘No, save yourself.’ In the new age of enlightenment, in the age of information no two parties were ever so divided nor ignorant to their own comparable quality versus economic inequalities. It’s as if information exhaustion has taken charge and we rely on old intel to fill-in awkwardly.

There are things to do: actions to bring strength to the words and theories of our age, miracles of accomplishment to answer the many prayers for help, communication, facts and intelligence to repel ignorance. There’s hands to hold – eyes to look into. There are poses of confidence at the groundbreaking of truly modern treatment. Stimulus-é-coolest: the things we need versus the things we want. Steady paychecks for those who provide care and not just crass dividends to those who find ways to cut service. An embrace to renew faith in our can-do with a healthier, fitter and stronger path on which to ford forward.

And what does Big Health do? They collect your money and they invest it. Staggering amounts of money that they invest in the very companies that charge them for your health care – private hospitals, campaign finance, medical suppliers, construction companies, demolition, real estate, funerary services, data-systems, and Big Pharma. It’s a recirculating system contrived to seem open-ended but in reality runs like a Rube Goldberg contraption where the marble not only starts the process but begins the process upon completion. And now they say that if Big Health takes a hit then so will your Mutual Fund – the point of Mutual Funds being to spread your financial interests across the board. So you lose 5% off the fund but you gain 10 times that much by the mere benefit. It is a circular fund and some are invited to a taste of the well-spring of the sick but most are subject to a flood of debt if they find themselves only thirsty. And it’s all about cost. Republic after all means people’s business.

Why do people feel they need a gun at a Health Care Reform Town Hall Meeting?

There are some who think that they should be rewarded for a healthy lifestyle. How healthy is that? They are saying that those who take care of themselves and remain physically fit should get a discount or a rebate for their pride, access and prevention. They may say those who don’t should endure a penalty for sloth and gluttony. The guy who climbs mountains, goes to spin class, eats right, and isn’t an obese and hacking slob gets to keep more money even though he is suspect to untested supplements, has a torn ACL, could require an expensive emergency rescue from an aforementioned mountain excursion, could fall prey to e-coli outbreak from tainted spinach, and might die of exposure because he didn’t have a lighter. Well-being is both chosen and it is fated: There is no choosing well-being only. Shit happens.

The good hands, there when you need them, so you can spend less time worrying and more time with Grandpa fishing on a beautiful lake in a pristine wilderness forging it alone with confidence that if you fall or get hurt, or take ill then someone will be there to ease your suffering because you’re a good person who pays their bills, likes to work on the car, and always has dinner with the kids who look to you as their own protector.

Save as houses. Naive as fuck. Take care if they won’t give it.

Yes. The obese smokers of the world are more expensive, and often live lives of bitter resentment as their lives, loves and opinions are dismissed because they are deemed by an ever vain and increasing ugly on the inside sect of professionals that Aldous Huxley would endure as Alpha-Betas. I guess no one really enjoys being the derogatory scapegoat of inaction and stasis lifestyles. Look up the word “good” and compare with “great”.  As great as we can and good enough to make it better.

Ask your Doctor what (nothing) can do for you?

So what’s all the fuss about the Public Option? The Public Option would curb costs. The Public Option would set the standard for care. Call it Medicare for all? Call it Donkey Doctors? The fact is that we need healthcare for all and private insurance is not going to do that. The inefficient thieves of private insurance and the Big Health ‘industrial trust’ would have to go straight and would be left to no options other than to actually deliver their product. Currently, Big Health is all on one side – theirs. They are not protecting your services. They are protecting their profits and control through trusts, deception, death threats, and monopolization. Their shared value is your dollar. That’s it. They pay many people to keep their money coming in. They pay very expensive people even more money to make you confused and angry through a manufactured downpour of truly boldface lies and distractions. So why a gun at a Health Care Town Hall? So why a gun at a Town Hall? Or even better, why pay attention to it? Why does the media follow the man with the gun? It bleeds – It leads. And guns make people bleed. Rubberneck. Where’s the story about the advertising source dollars. The news – any news tries to maintain some integrity but they all have an agenda. News is not news when it’s whispered in a room to no one. It’s about ratings. Ratings mean ad dollars. Ad dollars that come from where and why? Don Hewitt, the creator of 60 Minutes, described himself as the man responsible for money becoming the controlling interest in modern news coverage. His show made money. Before that news was done as a public service.

The Spectrum of Sinner to Saint. Compare and Contrast. Where do ‘lies’ fall or ascend? Who’s sinning? Who is saintly? Who defends? Who offends? Where is motive?

Seven Sins                                        

• extravagance, lust
• gluttony
• avarice/greed
• acedia/discouragement/sloth
• wrath
• envy
• pride

Seven Virtues

• chastity
• temperance
• charity
• diligence
• patience
• kindness
• humility

Decency. It is the keyword of Health Reform and I’m addressing the Health Care debate right? Why do people feel they need a gun at a Health Care Reform Town Hall Meeting?

Some may say I don’t have my facts straight. That big government is trying to suppress, restrain and strangle the well-oiled machine that is free enterprise. I’ll say this. At least I can somewhat hold a public official accountable – I at very least will know their name – Brownie – and if I run across them at a restaurant or the movie theater I can give them a piece of my mind. If my Congressman or Senator is a toady to Special Interests or just plain corrupt, I can at least put a face on that condition. Off the top of your head – name the CEO of Invacare, the CFO of Blue Cross, the PR agency and Account Executive for United Health Group? Is Kaiser Permanente not for profit? Sort of but not really. Ignorance after time can become dangerous and cruel. FreedomWorks takes great pride in buttressing and busing the loud and boisterously ignorant sheep it has herded together to “take back our country.” Why do people feel they need a gun at a Health Care Reform Town Hall Meeting? Wait a minute. Our country. Ours – yours and mine. With an elected democracy that pulses and flows between right and wrong, bad and good, with a regularity achieved by term limits and a representation that speaks for the minority and majority. A democracy striving to achieve the best conclusions for us all. Some might say meet at halfway? Okay. So which people don’t count? Who’s not covered? What’s half of health? One lump or two? One aspirin or two? One stroke or two? What is too much to consider?

“Although it is true that only 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the boards in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts.”
-Molly Ivins

Why wouldn’t I just trust Health Care Reform that is newly regulated and without a Public Option? Because no amount of regulation is going to straighten out a “trust” that is already bent into a spiraling circle. Only competition to that source will make the mega-powerful corporation enlist in a better way. AT&T was broken into a gadzillion pieces in the 80’s because it was deemed a monopoly. AT&T found itself whole again through the shedding of dull but not dead weight, the scrambling of pensions, and a massive downsizing, and by warming their hands on the hyper inflationary fires of the internet and wireless communication and now dominates a new corner of the market.

Just imagine if we had the foresight to quell that monolith with true competition when we were first fooled into thinking we had taken them down to size. Bring on the DSL, Wi-Fi and the endless waterfall of new phones that I suppose we can use as bricks to build cancer in China. And all those old AT&T “competitors” are still there – they just merged and purged and then changed logos, acronyms and adjusted the scale of delivered benefits. Sucked-up in a vacuum of corporate consolidation designed to make fewer and fewer, more and more wealthy and to cut the nuts off the FCC. And yes, they think you are a dolt. You are a number on a chart who’s only value is how much they can use you to pad their own wallets.

The corporate heavyweights just live differently then you and me and when they saw the call for the change what did they do? They measured the problem.

Look at the bank bailouts. The banks blew it. We bailed them out and gave them a second chance to play fair. And now “our” credit is in question when applying for a mortgage. Does it seem right that the banks in unison all screw the pooch and now are re-empowered to assess judgement and value. A public finance option for Main Street would have done wonders for the Jonses’ of this nation. We didn’t demand it and trusted in capitalism to right the ship making the American dream possible for anyone but 90% of Americans. Then the banks went and fee’d us six ways from Sunday. When they pay us back will we get back our interest due. Not if they pay early. Do I trust Corporations? Banks? Nope. Look at the Recovery Package. How much was devoted to renewable energy? How much to US manufacturing. How much was devoted to first home purchases. How many closed plants and factories did we retool? Again another compromise that leaves us prime to come to the same conclusions. Could have, should have, and would have but we didn’t want to change. We the people. We the public.

Allow me to channel Dick Armey and the President of FreedomWorks Matt Kibbe
having a little fictional tête-à-tête with Stephen Hemsley at that fictional country club that Frank and Chuck help build. Maybe they are sitting by the fire in wingbacks or on a deck overlooking the pool.

Stephen Hemsley: ‘We got to cut the legs out from all this change shit! And it was a mandate? A frickin’ landslide? Who do we use? Who do we call? You know that guy you met on the back nine from Andersen Consulting? Get him.’

Matt Kibbe: ‘You mean Accenture. That group that just negotiated the Lockerbie terrorist release for BP in Middlesex. What’s his name? He’s good. Got a mean streak too.’

Dick Armey: ‘Yeah but, how do we change this change for us? We need to take the “care” out of the conversation. We have to find the familiar. Instead of losing life make it about – a way of life lost. Make it about just “us” again.’

Matt Kibbe: ‘Who out there is dead-dog opposed to liberalism?’

Dick Armey: ‘We need to use those real American’s with the big God on their side; the ones with flags, guns and puffed-up chests full of the grease and venom from a lifetime of cluelessness as to the pretext for their very own condition  –‘

Xian: ‘Excuse me gentlemen. Here’s your cheese plate. There’s Maytag Bleu with Wild Mountain Honey, Baked Camembert and also some Applewood Cheddar with Baby Pinot Grapes. Van Gogh Gouda and Grand Cru Gruyere. Also some Green Bella di Cerignola Olive tapenade with Semifreddi’s  Sourdough walnut bread. Would any of you care for another cocktail or perhaps a bottle of wine?’

Matt Kibbe: Another red Stephen?

Stephen Hemsley: ‘Yes,’

Xian: ‘The 2005 Duckhorn Estate Cab. (to Dick) and for you?’

Dick Armey: ‘I’m fine.’

Xian: ‘Very good.’ (walks back to wait station and orders backwaiter to bring more bread and retrieve sommelier.)

Dick Armey: Damn this tapenade is good. As I was saying… Get those real American’s. Those slap-happy wackos – the real tough sons-a-bitches that follow a shiny object like trout. Get the white linen set. Get the salt of the earth types that retreat to the wild not to admire beauty but to shoot it in the ass. We need to pull out the chargers – rile up our cross-bowed and cross-eyed pundits! Get your VP’s and management in the mix. From UHB to Ed Hanway’s Team. It’s their rice bowl too. Get the preachers, pastors, reverends and rabbi’s on board – tell them we’ll go broke. Get Bill-O and his big pillow and that fat bum Rush.

Stephen Hemsley: ‘I love that guy.’

Matt Kibbe: We own reform – not fall victim to it. We’ll get Hannity and Beck too. Waving about like rodeo clowns and then we’ll fuck any H.R. by driving over it with a monster truck of distraction and fallacy.’

Stephen Hemsley: ‘With a tea-bag pinned on the grill.’

-big laugh all around

Dick Armey: ‘This is our big chance to step up as a party, too. To find our strength again. And so we pile a little cash on that fire and watch the burn from the outside looking-in. It’s a small price to pay. Besides when we’re done the opposition should be so demoralized that a light wind will blow them down. This is about legacy. About heritage. About bounty. This is about a way of life that we simply make too much from to walk away. We let this pass and it will just be a start.’

-silent pause

Dick Armey: ‘We get into a debate about service and cost and we… We will lose unless we change the debate. This President wants to define the terms. I say, never let them even see the green. Bring on the chaos, the insecurity. Make it loud, everywhere. Disinformation, confusion, segregation. Focus on the Senate – the House is a non-starter. Stall. Balk. Let the lobbyists wave in the red state blue dogs. Let the networks know we have a lot of ad dollars that will go bye-bye. Keep em in the woods. Make it about that guy – that guy. That guy with the fucking gun.’

Stephen Hemsley: ‘And then we let those liberal pussies run in circles trying to figure out where they lost the plot.’

Dick Armey: ‘Now, your getting it.’

And that’s it. That’s why there’s a gun at a Health Care Reform Town Hall Debate. We are talking trillions of dollars no longer going to boondoggles and green fees. Trillions missing the overdone PR firms, the executive retreats in Bermuda and the file room that is wall to wall drawers of family trusts – trusts entrusted to banks so you know they are covered. We are talking about a trillion dollars dedicated to Big Health mega-salaries. They’ll bury you in bad information or leave you scared shitless, cowering in your kitchen corner endangered by every derogatory cheap shot, misconception fallacy eschewed by FreedomWorks and their minions of dominion. The affluent capitalist and his Armey of douche are worried about a consumer advantage and a citizen’s alternative where there were none before. They bring out the classic games, old weapons and tired and tiring arguments with dominoes and slippery slopes and all projected with in your face legerdemain.

Adam Smith’s invisible hand is broken. There’s a lot of pain. The opiate of the masses has been prescribed to inject 1Trillion c.c.’s of fear factor. And the Congress (Who me? Yeah you.) is marquee’d to play a role. Not as leader but as chorus. Thoughtful legislators or obtuse gallup riders. The diagnosis of freewill is at odds with desire to make some coin. The “Care” portion of Health Care may actually need to be practiced on sick people. The sickest persons being those who would can only see it as cost and not as benefit. And then there’s the gunmen expressing his misbegotten objective to display 2nd Amendment rights. He’s the tool who wishes he were sick because that could maybe provide some answer to his malaise, heart broken exercise and inadequacy.

Garry Shandling to Harold Ford on Bill Maher: “Sir with all due respect, and this man knows me. I am a comedian. But in my spare time things bother me.”

I write this blog because I’m concerned about group think and ambivalence. I worry about corporate malfeasance, governing isolation and bubble economics and I choose representation. It is not done in conceit but rather with an understanding that formative conclusions are not always addressed in the media. It is a voice. It is opinion and fact compiled to conclusion. It takes effort but with each piece written and studied I know more than when I started. I know that a lot of people out there share the sentiment that an unaddressed problem doesn’t go away. It gets worse. I don’t always enjoy my conclusions – I find them mostly disturbing, prescient, and too light on amicable resolution, but it is one way to be heard without screaming. I am probably wrong as much as I am right, but not reaching for answer is no answer. So I reach and sometimes I find truths. It is of little concern as the audience and my ratings are at around 10 – a year. And I get to listen to professional journalists, some who make millions and are respected by millions, blather away about blogger lame-a-tude. That they are insulted by a bloggers mere presence – dismissed as undisciplined hacks lobbing peanuts from the cheap seats. And maybe I am. Maybe I am a wannabe and an embarrassment? I do this shit for free. How stupid is that? I spend days working on a piece that most will never read. It’s too bad that I enjoy this picayune exercise.

Bill Moyers surprised me the other day

I keep to heart the good Samaritan, the good deed and the resigned martyr. I smile from my Irish side, and harken the angels of Senator Kennedy and his lifetime of influence and power struggling to do well for others, so much done, but so much more needed to be done. Not this time? Yes, this time we will. This time, this decision – of the 1000’s of poor compromises we make that cloud our better nature – this time, it shall be done because love will take precedence and Big Money can step-off or fuck off. This time we will find our decency or be yet another generation dammed. We will know Frank and Barb. Lucy and Chuck as we know ourselves, and their lives will mean something beyond an example of charity and kindness. We’ll delve into one more thing that’s good about all of America – we are decent and brave and our paths more often than not parallel each other. Our needs are common and spirit is strong; individuality and independence live. We will find our compassion. We will sacrifice for the greater good again and not find our soul stuck in our throats longing to escape mistakes of conscience. We get it right most of the time and very wrong at others. But we learn from our mistakes. Sorry is only worthwhile if you mean it and plan to make amends. Reconciliation.

So be decent to each other in earnestness. Protect decency. Protect one and another’s life, liberty and pursuit of happiness and don’t stop there. Read the whole constitution – the Preamble, the Articles, the source material and philosophy. Heck, just read the Bible – Love your fellow man. He might even learn to love you back? Do onto others as you would have others do onto you. Don’t put it off because it seems to expensive. There is never a good time to be decent; especially when it’s cheap, or it’s easy.  And if it is cheap and easy you ought to look closer because chances are someone is lying to you. It’s not about no can do – it’s about our ability to do it well – to do it better. To have action tied to goodwill – to insure all our futures. Our occupations and dreams will remain stagnant and unfulfilled until we acknowledge destinations and consider best conclusions. Perfection may be unattainable but common decency and compassion are imperative to anyone’s true success. And compromise? Rarely do we find half-decent or half-healthy applicable. The entitled get care and care not while the rest must battle with entitled obscenity. There’s a trigger, there’s a gun: Decency has a price. It’s not free. It’s also not that expensive.

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. “
– CS Lewis