Personally Political

Ack, politics are not my thing.  I want to say that I was personally embarrassed by women who were willing to cast votes for the Republican party.  As a woman, as a supporter of Planned Parenthood, as a 20 year Healthcare Administrator, I was apalled by the willingness of women to defer to a position of “white male supremacy” (the old ‘I know better than you’).  I don’t mean to split the world into bad and good.  I just don’t understand a woman agreeing with a politician who states that it is not her right to choose how she treats her body.  A couple of weeks ago Marilyn Vos Savant (Parade magazine’s over 200 IQ consultant writer) responded to a question about why people advocate for ridiculous ideas and she reminded us of two realities about being human: one is that if we admit to making a mistake because of wrong thinking – then we are afraid that it will cast our entire life into question.  We don’t want to question ourselves at that level.  We will also agree with our chosen group’s philosophy (Republican / Democrat) because we want to be a successful member of our group.

Still… I’ve got to say that it hurt my heart to see women voting for Republicans.  I know that is a bold statement, I know that there are folks who will be angry with me about this statement, I just have to say, that it was a difficult experience for me.  It was also quite gratifying to see the biggest offenders get voted out of office.  Thank Goodness!

Bruce Says: “I feel that the so called ‘Religious Extremists’ in this country are no better than the Taliban in their treatment of women.  I am so thankful that several of our nations elected officials were voted out of office, based on their insane remarks re: rape and a woman’s right to choose.  I am hopeful that the American public are more concerned with fairness, humanity, and individual freedoms than ‘ The Economy’.”

I also want to add my academic perspective: health care economists have been doing research on the cost of health care for decades.  We are not the only country in the world who has grappled with these difficult issues.  There are a few facts which are hardly ever discussed and are nonetheless part of the fabric of this country.  For a couple of decades now we have an embarrassingly high infant mortality rate.  For the poor in our own country, it compares with third world statistics on infant mortality rate – it is embarrassing that our high infant mortality rate compares with third world countries.  Second Fact: for decades now, the predictor for dying of breast cancer has nothing to do with medicine, the predictor for dying of breast cancer is based on whether or not you have insurance.  If you have breast cancer and no insurance, you are much more likely to die.  Now the third statistic, which is extremely scarey, is the fact that uninsured pediatric trauma victims do not receive the care neccessary to gain a full recovery.  There are people in this country that would have us believe that these three populations are somehow responsible for their own lack of medical care.  My answer to that is simple: Admit that, in America, we ration health care by depriving it from the poor.  This has been an economic fact since the beginning of the study of health care economics.  Other countries in this world have come up with workable health care plans for their entire population.  I say that America has the best brains, the best technology and certainly enough wealth to take care of its own.