Epic outrage, 5 straight ahead

So yesterday the big news was that the Supreme Court upheld the majority of the health care law that was passed in 2010.  Evidently the most shocking aspect was the conservative judge that wound up backing the law wasn’t the one most people thought would.  Now this guy is being cremated by the health care haters.

Ok although I have covered this topic many times in my blogsphere, let me quickly recap my thoughts on this.

I think the healthcare mandate that was passed was far from ideal, it was manipulated and mangled by the infinite dollars in the pockets of insurance company lobbyists. However I think it is a step in the right direction.  Prior to the law insurance companies had the deck ridiculously stacked in their favor.  They got fat insuring low risk customers and if an actual health problem arose they would find a way to dump them. Once a person was dumped they were literally f’d since no company would touch someone with the dreaded “pre-existing conditions”.

This plan has been incredibly successful for insurers.  Despite the sky rocketing medical expenses of the last couple decades, insurance behemoths have consistently posted immense profits.

The healthcare law attempts to level that playing field by doing stuff like removing lifetime caps and the pre-existing condition black hole. Now as a compromise to insurance companies, the stipulation that people MUST carry health insurance was added.  The theory behind that is by enforcing this requirement, the cost of insurance gets spread among a significantly larger pool of individuals.

I have a very simple question for people that rail against this theory.  I ask if they think that owners of automobiles should be required to carry auto insurance?  You are required to carry insurance because you could potentially impact others as a result of your driving.

If I extend this to health insurance, if you are 350 pound fat ass with no insurance that finds themselves in the hospital treating your various obesity related health issues (heart attacks, diabetes, strokes, etc…) then you are impacting me as well.  Your lack of insurance means the health provider is absorbing all of that expense which directly affects the cost of health care for people actually footing the bill.

The health care law has some other good things in it like requiring no co-pay for preventative type procedures, check ups.  Honestly I wish it did even more to reward people that take personal responsibility for their health.

From a historical perspective, it is important to know that both social security and medicare were initially greeted with similar amounts of resistance with similar predictions of doom and gloom.  However today, if you took a poll regarding if these programs should exist or not there would only be a tiny fraction against them.  Our elderly population relies on them.

It seems like there is a lot of focus on the slimy part of the population that make a career out of not doing shit.  Instead they muddle through life doing as little as possible while collecting government benefits as a reward.  Hey, I HATE that mentality as much as anyone.  But the difference is I don’t let my dislike of those type of people blind me to the fact that there is a much larger percentage of people that are in genuine need of help.  They aren’t working the system, they are doing the best they can but still are drowning.

I also think that people that feel strongly about either side of the healthcare issue are huge hypocrites if they are not doing the right things to take care of their own health.  I mean the biggest part of this entire health care cluster f is looking at back at us in the mirror, we are the problem.

Our country as a whole is disgustingly unhealthy.  The massive health care costs we see today are a direct result of our own gluttony and laziness.  It’s only getting worse as the fat ass curve is moving farther and farther down the age range.  Childhood obesity is accelerating at frightening levels.

So to summarize, I’m glad the court did not cut the legs off legislation that is at least a start in the right direction but until our country stops shoving shit down their throats at breakneck speeds we are ultimately f’d in the end.

I used a couple vaca days to give me a 5 day weekend next week after 4th of July.  I am looking forward to it and plan to utilize that time to do some painting.  I want to at least get the master bathroom painted and if I am feeling crazy ambitious, the bedroom as well.

I have been debating what I want to do color wise.  I am leaning towards sticking with the color used in the main living area for the bedroom and maybe the bathroom as well.  It’s not a daring color but pleasing to my eyes.  I was considering painting the bathroom the same green that we used in the spare bathroom and office, I like that color too.

I guess I will firm up my color choices this weekend.