Good Afternoon, time for an afternoon cup.

First, congratulations to Graham for winning the 2nd quarter of the What in the World is this contest,  two in a row!   Will he ever be defeated? 

If you’re wondering why the scores in the sidebar haven’t been updated it’s due to some weird problem I’m having making changes to the blog presentation files,  I’m working on it, and once I figure it out, the Q3 competition shall begin.

So I saw Sicko this weekend,  great flick,  really well done,  it would be impossible to see this movie, as an American, and not realize what a mess our health care system is.  

I found two things very revealing about this movie…

#1: I wasn’t aware of how the whole HMO system came about in the 70’s,   listening to the White House tapes of Nixon basically plotting to screw Americans out of their hard earned dollars was pretty chilling, and sad.

#2: I also wasn’t aware of how it worked in the rest of the western world,  I had heard Canada, the UK and France had great systems, but I wasn’t aware that they were completely free,  top notch,  and contrary to the propaganda from the right-wing liars,  Doctors in those countries still make enough to have million dollar homes and drive Audi’s.

One of the big lies that the right-wingers repeat over and over again is how we’ll be broke if have nationalized health care.   That’s funny,  we seem to be ok with nationalized libraries, fire and police and postal service,  is that why we’re going broke?  Or could it be that we recently flushed $500 billion down the toilet in Iraq?

I would gladly pay more in taxes to avoid our national healthcare nightmare,  this year alone I’ve already spent $400 out of pocket in health care expenses, for everything from a trip to the emergency room (food poisoning) to yearly checkup blood work (cholesterol etc.).   Oh… and I have medical insurance (PPO).    What a scam.    Considering the thousands and thousands of dollars that was paid out for this, I’m sure any increase in taxes would have covered it easily.

If we’re going to change the system, then we need to have a different mindset.  We have to go from a “ME” society to a “WE” society if we want to stop screwing ourselves.

See the movie, it may make you want to move to Canada, France the UK or Cuba, but it’s worth the $10 bucks.

Porter