Azucar Negra- Con un canto en el pecho

Healthcare Reform Framework, A Return to Natural Law....

I am a fan of socialized/community healthcare BUT from the bottom up and NOT from the top down. Insurance companies can stay or go for all I care, but they shouldn't be the only line of defense for people. The current system is fraught with immoral behavior that doesn't have any integrity. Without admitting it openly or even privately to themselves, any person in the Senate and Congress knows this to be the case. The entire system system designed to support payment of care is phenomenally bassackwards and should be upended and I can give you a list of things that I believe can help us go down right road. These suggestions are not for a weak hearted political representative as anyone trying to advocate this stuff is committing career suicide. However, the architects of the Constitution believed that only the best among us should be called to serve and I firmly believe the best among us could see reason in what I suggest below even if its not in their best interests. Below is a framework for beginning a struggle that could culminate in the implementation community plans all over the country.

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1. Implement the teaching natural law and morality in early childhood education and via yearly re-application the public and private school systems. It has the to be the basis for behavior for school children not just in word but in practice. All universities should be required to teach morality and ethics via a dynamic curriculum that requires students to participate in real life scenarios in the communities where the schools are located. This should be an across the board requirement regardless of the discipline studied. A strong sense of moral responsibility has to be the core of this country and without it we will continue to have too much corruption in our political and commercial systems. It's a back the basics approach that should eventually weave its way into the backbone of our society, even in those pockets that are resistant. The end goal is to have a nation of moral people, in all segments, that are able to make rational decisions about hard life choice, but in fair and equitable ways. This is EXTREMELY important for any of the following to work.

2. Public Service Marketing campaigns sponsored by the national, state, and city governments hailing the importance of charity in our community. These would continually emphasize importance of people taking care of one another.

3. Establishment of community, city, and state programs funded to pay for medical procedures, operations, and long term care where people cannot afford them OR their insurance plans have failed them. All of these programs should be funded by charitable donations from private citizens and enterprises that are above the line deductions from federal taxes. So in essence, the funds needed come from the communities first and then go up to higher levels for assistance only if there isn't enough available to satisfy the local demand.

4. Because of an increased demand, we will need an increased supply of Doctors. Make loan interests payments for Physicians an above the line tax deductible expense.

5. Have national model of a Real Tort Reform bill that limits damages for medical malpractice to real damages. Damages such as loss of income for the term of the recovery or for a lifetime, if needed, and payment of all necessary medical costs and after care. Various states have their own laws but implementation of the federal law will get you access to number 8 on this list.

6. If willful, repeated, and deliberate medical malpractice can be proven then Physicians will go to jail. However, medical accidents (no one is perfect) should not punished to the point where someone cannot continue to practice.

7. Keep the Private Healthcare facilities PRIVATE. DO NOT federalize them, no matter what...EVER.

8. Offer Federal Tax Subsidies to organizations that look to establish community healthcare facilities in places that don't have enough supply.

9. Establish strong federal standards for level of care and quality and establish a system for periodic reviews and/or inspections.

10. Implement term limits for all of the US Congressmen/women so that special interest groups and lobbyists don't dictate policy. <--- I would say eliminate the lobbyists but under the table will still be under the table.

11. Repeal the 17th Amendment which made the Senators vulnerable to the very same special interest groups and lobbyists.

A Little Rueda Cuban Style

A Little Cuban Salsa

Its SNOWING in Montreal

Travel Day today Oslo - Amsterdam.

Today I set off for my first road trip in Europe. I have been working in Oslo for 3 weeks now and I believe its time for some R and R. So where is the natural place to go? You got it, Amsterdam. I am meeting Donny (piss pants) Kunz there. He is a co-worker at Sonus. It just so happens that we are both in Europe at the same time so we can go party like rock star Euro style in Hamsterdam. For me, its even nicer because I am on a long term contract here in Oslo and due to the flight times I am unable to go home. So its nice to be able to hang with someone I know after being completed surrounded by strangers since I got here. Anyway, look for me on the flip side. I will post some notes about my trip later.

Kelly

Ghetto Haiku of the Day

You leave the club last.

Leading her to your car and

Pray your boyz don’t see

Ghetto Haiku of the Day

Big rims and big sound

Riding by, bass pounds your ears

Ghetto symphony

Ghetto Haiku of the Day

Ester Baxter has

Big, brown, soft, round, warm, tasty

Bread in the oven

Ghetto Haiku of the Day

Dark clouds, wind, and rain...

Evacuees flee their homes....

Suge Knight is in town

Dune Quote of the Day

Atrocity is recognized as such by victim and perpetrator alike; by all who learn about it at whatever remove. Atrocity has no excuses, no mitigating argument. Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity. It is self perpetuating upon itself, a barbarous form of incest. Whoever commits atrocity also commits those future atrocities thus bred.

- Frank Herbert "Children of Dune"

Dune Quote of the Day

Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife -- chopping off what's incomplete and saying: "Now, it's complete because it's ended here."
"Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan

• Frank Herbert - Dune

Dune Quote of the Day

There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

"Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan

• Frank Herbert - Dune

Dune Quote of the Day

"There is no escape -- we pay for the violence of our ancestors."

"Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan

• Frank Herbert - Dune

Dune Quote of the Day

Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.
"Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan


Frank Herbert - Dune

Dune Quote of the Day

• "There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man -- with human flesh."
  "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan"
• Frank Herbert - Dune