Up until today I have stayed out of the health care debate (except to add a comment now and again to some brilliantly written diary by someone who knows a lot more about the situation than I do). But today I received this e-mail from a friend in Montana and I felt compelled to share it here with all of you. He called it No More Jars in Bars so I did too.
No More Jars in Bars
(copied and edited with permission of author)
Just some thoughts on healthcare and perhaps why this is a good week to go on-line and e-mail Max Baucus (in particular) and tell him to follow the President's lead and not try to be the "king of compromise" and continue to sell his Co-Op idea (which research has shown to be a very feeble if at all workable concept.)
One name: (name withheld to protect privacy of individual). I was momentarily speechless (if you know me you know this is quite a qualifier) as I ordered a hamburger at the rodeo and saw that sad little plastic jar for donations toward his care. There, among what I assume is a largely Republican voting contingent, stood a jar with dollar bills, the total amount of which will sadly not buy his wife a week of lunches at the hospital cafeteria, let alone scratch the surface of the million they will owe for medical services. I thought: How in the Hell in the land of true patriots can a bunch of people look at that piss-poor attempt to "help" that man and his family and not realize that the problem is so terribly much larger than this "gesture in a jar"? Sometimes "nice" isn't good enough. Sometimes prayers are just way too metaphysical. Sometimes "positive vibes" (the announcer's term) don't make the damned trip to Seattle or Missoula and sit down with his wife and the hospital social worker and talk about how not to go bankrupt. Sometime soon we all, no matter what our political affiliation, need to crawl from under this post-cold-war fear of "communism", "socialism" and "big government" and realize the thing to fear is the post-Reagan-era "rule of billionaires". The poor man (Reagan) thought the money would trickle down; that good men would do good things like in the movies. They didn't. They kept the money. They moved their businesses overseas. They, in short, became addicted to wealth. They quite effectively screwed the very country they continue to purport to support. Max Baucus (recipient of nearly FIVE MILLION DOLLARS from insurance and pharmaceutical companies) has joined this phony club.
Blessings to everyone working on the (name withheld) benefit. Positive vibes to everyone helping out on their ranch. But for heaven's sake....common sense to anyone who thinks that this is doing ENOUGH. Let's simply wake-up and realize that we can't "gesture jar" and "rummage sale" and "benefit dance" and "auction" our way out of this mess. Frankly, we shouldn't have to. We continue to fight the trillion-dollar endless war and nary a peep from anyone. We have billion-dollar space program while the ocean dies. We have jars in bars for loose change to help good men and women and sick children. Go figure. Go to the phone or the computer and really do something to change this sick sick situation.
--
For whom the bell tolls... a poem
No Man is an Island
by John Donne
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.