Hello, I recently started a new job, I can now help the under served without worrying about getting paid, that is right, I now provide medical care to patients at the state psychiatric hospital.
I am tired however, quite tired of the battle for equitable health care. I have blogged, joined organizations, signed petitions, called my representative politicians, written letters to the editor, spoke to groups/organizations, written a book, argued, debated and screamed. I will never understand why a profession, whose very roots demand that we are here to serve the human race, to battle suffering and promote health, is so hotly debated as an economic issue!! I understand medical economics better the most, but not as well as some, and yet I can't see why people can not get past their "ideas" of how it "should" be?? To quote an author from a favorite book, "as long as ideas are more important than people, we will continue to kill people and let them die in the name of our ideas". I truly do not believe that anyone of the people who continue to make the economic argument for "free market" health care could look into the eyes of someone who is dying (or their family for that matter) from a treatable disease that likely would have been prevented through an equitable public health system and still argue for "free market" health care. If they can do that, than all is lost and I will have to personally reinvest in Thomas Hobbs' book "The Leviathan" for in this case, we are all self serving, uncivilized monsters, and not only have we not evolved past public displays of lions eating people, we have actually devolved to watching our brethren die and suffer right next to and in front of us in the name of personally retained resources.
Here are some of the organizations that are fighting for healthcare reform with different agendas.
Code blue
Health care grass roots
PNHP
AARP
Health Care Now
SEIU
AMA
Families USA
This is just a short list!!! there are many, many more, we are all advocating for changes in the health care system, all with different agendas for different reasons. I am tired, as a one time mentor said to me, "that's like shoveling shit against the tide" and so it is.
