Healthcare with an occupy tie in

[Pete Nice]

I wanted to post this blog post from a lower middle class Pittsburgh resident the same age as me.

It is more about healthcare, as it was written in September of 2007. But OH MY GOD look at the foreshadowing that basically is ripping Occupy 4 years before it happened.

"Wide-eyed and terrified I watch the democrat primary "debates", which are actually just like joint press conferences, all the slack jawed lefties salivating for Hilary to announce Obama as her running mate. Cold sweat leaks out of me, white knuckles grips the remote. I see them all jabbering about a nationalized health care system, all of them saying the same thing like some warped dilapidated cassette tape that was sitting out in the sun too long, perhaps locked inside a car like a dog, or a neglected toddler.

Empty suits or skirts, whatever, yammering about our health care system and how bad it is. I frantically look around for the faintest sign of laughing, or disbelief from the audience; instead they draw cheers and applause. "What the fuck has happened to this nation?" I think out loud, only my cat is in the room to hear me. When did we need other people to pay our bills? I spend a little time online doing research about the Canadian health care system and England's nationalized health care system and suddenly ours doesn't look too shabby. In fact, when I analyze it, I recognize that we have the best health care system in the world.

When rich foreigners need surgery they come here, even Castro; despite what that tubby bastard Michael Moore told you. I have all the perspective in the word in this department; I went for a long time without a good job, or medical insurance, at a time in my life when I was being dropped on my neck and thrown into barbed wire for a living. When you get sick, you go to the doctor, and you pay for it when you can. To me, that's the key, YOU pay for it, yourself. Not me, I don't want to pay for you. And I am sure you wouldn't want to pay for me. We will be living in a nanny state, where the taxes will be astronomical just so we can pay for our neighbor's sickness.

When my lungs succumb to the black mentholated cancer, or my spotted, abused liver finally gives out under the heavy weight of beer and whiskey, I do not expect any of you to pay for my medical treatment, like a beggar on the corner of 6th and pen with a misspelled sign and stained old coffee cup. The taxes that are going to mount on us as citizens are going to more than double in the light of this health care crisis. I heard that some Canadians are up to 30%. Staggering, I can't imagine 30% of my money redistributed to other people.

I am not an economist; in truth I cannot balance my checkbook properly. However, I do know that the government can lower a price on something through laws and rules and tariffs, but it cannot lower the cost or value of something. In that fragile equation somewhere leaves a large gap of slack. That slack needs pulled by someone, that slack encompasses research, technology, and education of our medical professionals. We have the best doctors in the world, and I hate to tell you this it is because of the free market. Money is like blood in the water, but not just for doctors, for everyone. I am thinking about jumping to another job, because I got a pay cut in a "work force reduction" Everyone aspires to a better paying job. Medical professionals are the same. This country gives you the opportunity to increase your quality of life, through freedom. That is the answer to the question of the human condition; freedom to succeed and fail. That is how the generations before us built the best country that has ever been on the face of the Earth.

On the philosophical front, I take a somewhat callous point of view. I already pay enough taxes to pay for schooling of children that aren't mine; enough of my money is already transferred to people who can't afford their own groceries. It doesn't take a village it takes a responsible adult. I am tired of being taxed. And it chills me to my bones to think that some Americans harbor the idea that it's right for us to be paying for each other's medical treatment. Where is the American spirit and national identity in begging for the government to take care of us? Like we were all children? Where is the squared jaw can-do attitude of our grandfathers? Where are the tough ones saying "We are here to do the job, and we do not rattle easily"? When did we become a nation of people shaking in our boots? When did we become a people begging big brother to take care of our every needs? When did we start checking our personal responsibility at the door?"