Well, here's my first entry. September 4, 2007. It is my Mother's birthday. Disclaimer to possible readers: I am hard to follow. I really have no idea where I will go in an entry before I start it, but hopefully this will be sucessful. My Language and Composition teacher says this form of writing is called String of Conciousness, which is relieving to hear from her, because for the past 6 years I just thought it was bad writing and ADD. Either way, right? At least this blog will provide me a place to dump my thoughts. I think better in lists. I have no clue what that is a product of. I guess I'll write in lists then.
1- I went to the dentist today, which, of course, was a pretty awful experience. The whole dental practice is almost medieval when you think about it. Who thought (and who is still thinking) that prodding around a patient's gums with a sharp pointy stick until they bleed would prevent bacteria? If I get through the next week without a gum infection, I'll be surprised. But that's all personal anger towards the pain that was inflicted upon me, and probably most people would just go on with their day. But, in a serious note, there are other reasons that dental medicine is questionable. I was given, at most, half an ounce of fluoride to "swish" around in my mouth, and then they charged my father 38 dollars. I would like to mention that my father was never informed or asked if I could have fluoride, I was just given it. And then he was talked down to when he questioned the charge, because with his dental plan, a cleaning is supposed to be free. It's all very questionable. I could go to Walgreens right now and buy a bottle with 40 ounces of fluoride for 4 dollars. Or even better, I could turn on my sink faucet, grab a cup, and drink a healthy glass of fluoride- boosted Georgia water. Then, my dentist tried to get me to "invest" in a $300 tooth brush, that is "only available through your dentist!" which means one thing to me: my friend, Dr. Yaz, would be earning some sort of fat commission off of me. Which is sad in two ways: one, I don't need a $300 dollar tooth brush and shouldn't be hassled into buying one, but more importantly, my dentist, Dr. Yaz, should not have to be a salesperson on top of a dentist. The whole experience just got me thinking about the way healthcare works in America. I worked in a health insurance survey company this winter, and learned alot of things from it. One thing I learned is that people most people leave their health insurance because the cost they pay to keep it outweighs the "benefits" that they are promised. I would say most, no, a vast majority of the people I surveyed had no health insurance at all, nevermind dental insurance. I worked in a hospital that winter as well, and can remember a time sitting with the nurses as they fought over the phone with a pharmacy, trying to find a more cost effective generic for the poor couple and their son with the stomach infection. I remember walking the same couple down to the billing offices, watching them like a prison guard, just to see them cry as they tried to figure out how to pay the large sum of money that they owed the hospital just for helping their son to stop throwing up. I'm not saying that that's nothing, I certainly could not help that child, I'm just saying.
Lets put it this way: The "average" 4 person Georgia family median income (not mean mind you) is at 61 thousand dollars, give or take 1,986 dollars, according to the Census Bureau. Georgia's median income is about 12 thousand more than the national average, which is impressive, I guess. But the national average has only rose by like 10 thousand since the 70s, while the price of living has increased way more than that. But, you know, whatever. I had a point. Oh yea! 17.6 percent of Georgia residents (about 1 million people, depending on who you ask) are not completely insured in America. The minimum wage in Georgia is $5.15 an hour, which, by the way, is not only under the federal minimum wage, but also 80 cents less than that of Guam. A 40 hour work week would yield about 206 dollars, minus taxes. The price of a pediatric visit according to a 2001 study was $92. So basically, thats about half a week's work to pay for a doctor visit. That it, if you can get in an appointment while working 8 hours a day. But enough with the statistics. The fact is, the health care system in America is incredibly flawed and inefficient. I've heard many an arguments from my more "conservative" (notice the quotes- I do not want to lump them with educated, actual conservatives) counterparts about how the system creates more capitalist competition, therefore making the care we're provided better. Wrong. Maybe for the 1 million Georgia residents without health insurance it's competitive, but for the other 7 million of us, we go where we're told. This leads to not only super corruption and hidden fees, but to a basic feeling of "It doesn't matter". Andrew Moravcsik of Newsweek International put it this way:
"'Americans have the best medical care in the world,' Bush declared in his Inaugural Address. Yet the United States is the only developed democracy without a universal guarantee of healthcare, leaving about 45 million Americans uninsured. Nor do Americans receive higher-quality health care in exchange. Whether it is measured by questioning public-health experts, polling citizen satisfaction or survival rates, the health care offered by other countried increasingly ranks above America's. U.S. infant mortality rates are among the highest for developed democracies. The average Frenchman, like most Europenas, lives nearly four years longer than the average American. Small wonder that the World Health Organization rates the U.S. healhcaer system only 37th best in the world, behind Columbia (22nd) and Saudi Arabia (26th), and on a par with Cuba."
So, there goes that argument. It is exhausting, however, to try to explain to people that America is no longer the Hegemonic King that it thinks it is. I find it utterly sad that so many millions of Americans go without healthcare every year, and I cannot believe that we continue to look away from the issue.
Well I guess that's the political tangeant of the day. Onto other things.
2- I've been crying more than usual lately. This Saturday marked the beginning of my high school's football season. As we all cheered on the boys that we're in classes with us, who party with us on the weekend, who fail the same tests that we do, it was hard not to shake the fact that something was missing. Since the 6th grade, I had been watching Daniel play football. It was what he did, and he was awesome at it. It was understood: Daniel Peek would bring us to victory this year. But he wasn't out there. It literally tears me apart everytime I think about it. I started crying uncontrollably in the car with my family on the way home from the game, after my father mentioned what a "damned shame" it was that Peek didn't get to play football his senior year. Or at all, for that matter. Hell, UGA was already sending him letters first semester last year when he sat next to me in Algebra. But more tragic to me that his football career, is how he will never experience the life we all look forward to as children: going to college, getting married, raising a family. None of it. A pictures hangs in my room of all of us in 7th grade at a pep rally. Daniel stands next to me, clapping and smiling as we teach the boys a cheer. We're so young, all of us. We had no idea. What kills me more, now, is the utterings of how he might have "deserved" what he got. If I could only explain what my stomach is feeling right now as I re-read those words. It hurts to write them down, it makes it so real. How could anyone think that? How many times have we all gotten in the car a little out-of-it? How many times have people made mistakes. No one deserves what he got. You know what, tell that to his family. Look his mother, his father, his grandmother, his little brother in the freaking eyes and say that. Now re-think about it. Something like this does not just affect the person who's life was lost, but everyone who had ever known him. My school has lost at least 3 students in the past year, 4 if you count recent graduates. The county as a whole has lost probably close to two dozen while I have been in high school. And what do we do in retaliation? We cry and mourn and say it will change. But it doesn't, does it? We just drink more, snort more, smoke more, trying to fix our internal problems. We are in-freaking-vincible, aren't we? Of course we are, we can't stand the thought that we are not forever. But what can we do? Raise the drinking age? Give our kids alchohol so we can monitor them? Put a temporary band-aid on a long term problem? Humans are their own natural predators. It's all very Darwinistic if you think about it, we are our own enemy. But does any of that really matter? Does it take the pain away that it was a common mistake and bad judgement that killed Daniel? Does it keep me from crying still, 4 months later? No. All I can do is mourn and learn I guess, and pray for his family.
Well that is about all I can write about right now, even though I started with a massive list of things to cover, I'm a little worn out now, and my eyes are a little puffy.
Happy Birthday Mom!
