Category Archives: Political Rants

Political Rants

Say AAAHHH!

Here’s a little update on my health crisis from a couple of months ago: I’m still paying the price. Not physically, you understand – nothing noticeable in the way of lingering after-effects of my non-COVID illness. No, I mean I’m literally still paying the price of the hospital stay I experienced in April, the week after my birthday. I think I’ve gone over the numbers before on this blog, but let me just frame it in again so that there’s no mistake: the hospital fee – not the surgeon or anesthesiologist, just the hospital – added up to more than $50,000 for four days. The negotiated rate they charged was more like $37,500, but my portion of it was in excess of $5,000. Once again – I have employer provided health insurance … and the direct cost to me was over $5,000.

I am currently garnishing my own wages to cover this massive fee, adhering to a five month payment plan I agreed to with the hospital. Fortunately – and this is important – I am financially able to afford such an arrangement. But this is the best-case scenario in this cockeyed worker’s paradise known as employer-based health care. I have what has been termed a “Cadillac plan”, mostly because my employer pays 80% of my premiums. (Of course, I am also fortunate that I am not a woman and my employer doesn’t impose its religious convictions on my coverage or that of my wife, because apparently that’s a thing.) As I write this, I can imagine people all over Europe and the rest of the industrialized world scratching their heads over this concept of health care “luxury” – one that entails enormous contributions from the person stricken with disease or injury, regardless of their ability to pay.

I spoke about this issue in a couple of episodes of my podcast, Strange Sound, focusing on presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s comments regarding the supposed popularity of employer-based plans. The fact that tens of millions of people have a thing does not mean that thing is popular. A lot of people have foot diseases, for instance. And in times like these, employer-provided health insurance is a lot like a foot disease … it plagues your every step. It’s just a goddamned ridiculous way to distribute health care services, though that very formulation erroneously suggests that that is the goal of our current system. The goal of our system is not to provide people with the medical care they need; the goal is for some people to make a lot of money. The only way you can honestly analyze our healthcare system is by beginning with that realization.

With the COVID-19 pandemic raging through our country, cases on the rise in forty states, we need to seriously reassess this system. And we need to do it quickly.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.

Political Rants

Why fat Donnie don’t care.

I’ve been accused more than once of being cynical and of imputing the worst motives in every action of those I dislike. I suppose that’s fair – I’m certainly no better than most people in that particular category of failing. And I’m sure that fans of Donald Trump (yes, I’m looking at YOU) will take issue with what I have to say in this post, just as they are likely to frown at the title and decry it as a cheap shot. Again, it’s a fair cop. I think after what we’ve gone through over the last three and a half years, we’re due a few cheap shots, right? Friends can disagree on that point. As it happens, I take little interest in stories of the president’s personal boorishness, such as some of what is currently being reported with respect to his niece Mary Trump’s new book. Tales of his moronic sexism are as unsurprising as they are nauseating. He said his young niece was “stacked” – shocker! More evidence that he’s a titanic douche. Moving on.

No, I’m guessing that Trump supporters, if they read this blog, would take issue with my contention that the president doesn’t care about what happens to most COVID-19 victims … perhaps more than they would with my observation that he’s fat. Here again, it’s just acknowledgement of an obvious fact. If Trump cared what happened to COVID victims, he would do something about the pandemic (other than brag incoherently about how well he’s handling it). He is not doing anything to prevent these deaths, and in fact is going out of his way to advocate for policies and practices that will result in further spread of the disease. He lies about it incessantly, has done from the beginning, and attempts to push off responsibility for fighting the pandemic on other people, politicians, countries, etc. Why? Why would a president not want to preserve more lives?

I think the answer’s pretty obvious. Trump only cares about how things affect him personally. The people being killed by this virus are overwhelmingly drawn from communities that are less likely to support his re-election. The death rate for African Americans is more than twice that of whites. Indigenous and Latinx are dying at higher rates as well. Frankly, Trump doesn’t give a shit about those people. If more of them drop dead, there will be less of them marking a ballot for his opponent. Trump’s friend Bolsonaro offers an even more crass example of this – COVID is absolutely tearing through indigenous communities, the same people Brazil’s insane clown president thought should have been wiped out even more back in the days of conquest. Trump is a hair more subtle, but it doesn’t take Kreskin to work out his campaign calculus with regard to COVID victims. Fewer old white people, yes, but many, many fewer black people. What you lose on the milk you make back on the oranges.

What can we do? Defeat Trump in November, among many other things. This crisis has cast so many societal problems in stark relief – it’s clear what we need to do, and getting rid of Fat Donnie would be a good first step.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Intelligence and skepticism.

I had a weird feeling of displacement this week, hearing commentators and political officeholders talking about intelligence reports regarding the Russians’ alleged payment of bounties to the Taliban for the killing of Americans. Such an allegation is not particularly far-fetched – the United States has been in Afghanistan for almost twenty years, and there are plenty of people there who would try to kill our soldiers without compensation, but they probably would accept payment if offered. Still, listening to the outrage, it felt like some of the conversation in the months leading up to the Iraq war. Powell’s presentation to the UN in February 2003; the insistent claims about evidence of WMDs in Iraq, etc. All bogus, incidentally, and no one responsible for the misinformation was ever held accountable, as far as I know.

Of course, that was an example of an administration using its intelligence services to a specific end – in effect, weaponizing it. In the current case, Trump seems at odds with the intelligence community, but I’m not convinced his administration is. Let me be clear; while I don’t think Trump is some kind of Manchurian candidate programmed by Putin to destroy America, I do think that he’s a tremendously crappy president who wants nothing more than to license a Trump Tower Moscow when he leaves government service. If the stories about the bounty on U.S. soldiers are even partly true, it would be just one more example of Trump putting his own interests ahead of those of the people he is supposed to serve as president. Is anyone surprised by that?

Look, Trump is not some kind of unicorn. Anyone who has worked at a small business knows who Trump is. If you’ve ever worked for someone who had their name on the door, you know what I’m talking about. Trump’s ignorance, arrogance, impatience, arbitrariness, bullying tactics, self-aggrandizement, and parsimony are familiar to all former employees of America’s beloved small businesses. They’re not all that way, of course – some are benevolent dictators – but the American myth of the self-made man is a compelling one, and I’ve heard versions of it spouted to me over the years. They all pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, no help from anyone.

Though I’ve never met the president, I did briefly work for him in 1987-88, when I worked with a band that played Trump Plaza in Atlantic City. His company was terrible to employees, bands, etc. Now we’re seeing the same thing on a national scale – relentless self-dealing and an almost cult-like belief in himself. What. A. Freak. But at the same time, I recommend skepticism with respect to the information products of the intelligence agencies, even if the asshole-in-chief says it’s bullshit. The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.