Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Lately, some movies, based on some books by Dan Brown have probably got a lot of people thinking about who, or what is in control of our country. At least it has for me. A friend at work has lent me a book that talks about conspiracies based on the movie "Angels and Demons".

In the movie, the Illuminati, the Freemasons, and maybe some others are mentioned. I read the book years ago and only remember a little of it. I do remember that I was more interested in the storyline than the ideas about conspiracies.

About the conspiracy book. It has gotten me thinking more about conspiracies. With the way things are going, it seems to make a little more sense. At least it seems a little more plausible.

I listen to talk radio, and they talk about how the liberals just want control. They also talk about how the things that they are doing are putting our country deeper into debt. It seems to me that at some point, everything will come to a halt because we can't get the money to do anything anymore, or the value of our money will be worthless and getting paid with it will be pointless. My question becomes what is it the liberals will have control of? An absolutely financially ruined country. Is that what they really want?

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Parenthood

We're at Marietta getting ready to drop our youngest student off for her first year at college. We will be empty-nesters. How did that happen? Between both girls we have invested about 20 years into parenting. Twenty years! And now it comes to this. We came as three and leave as two. *sigh*

Now I feel forced to look at my life as an older person. The parenting years are over and now it's time to watch our children, grown up, get on with their lives. While the kids were around it was easy to get older and not let it bother me. Since turning 50 it was harder to do. Now that the kids are going to be gone most of the time it will be even harder. It's just us and our thoughts. That can be really scary. But time marches on and we will make the best of it and who knows, even enjoy it.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Health Care: What Did They Mean?

In a New York Times Op-Ed column by Richard Dooling; http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/opinion/17dooling.html, it was pointed out that there is a large amount of money spent on senior care. This includes housing, not so bad, and goes all the way to major medical interventions with small degrees of success, given the individual's age. Success being that the individual leaves the hospital. The thought he put out was that we should spend more, or shift our spending from advanced health care for seniors, who may not survive the procedures to 'prolong their lives' to the other end of the spectrum, obstetricians and pediatricians. An idea worht concideration.

Now that was put down crudely but when I heard an interview by the author, I found myself in agreement with the concept. Maybe we could prepare better for the end of our lives. When we get older and slower, and need more attention, about that time maybe we should think about whether we want to be kept alive at all costs, or go easily. What would our quality of life be like? At all costs hooked up to all sorts of machines for who knows how long? With an outcome of...?

For a long time, I thought I wanted to live as long as I could. So I try to take care of myself as best I can. Stay fit, eat healthy etc. But lately I've been thinking about how do I want to die. How much effort should be expended to keep me going? I'm thinking of how to have this discussion with my family. Do I even know what I want? This may take some time, but I believe it will be for the best.

I guess the point of the Op-Ed column is that maybe we should concider the possiblity that letter our elderly family relative pass on when medical intervention is no longer productive. This of course should be discussed with all pertenant family members, and the topic is very subjective and not all solutions are for everybody. I don't know that I've expressed myself as best I could, so I would ask that you take this entry with a wide view so to speak.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

The Bill

Yesterday I did a search online for the 'Health Care Bill', and found it. It was in response to someone posting, claiming that a certain portion of it advocated euthanasia. A part of me couldn't believe that there would be legislation so blatant and seemingly barbaric as to use that kind of language. I didn't know what to expect and so I found the portion of the bill in question, and read it.

The term 'euthanasia' never comes up. Rather, it sounds somewhat reasonable, in that, and I'm paraphrasing; every five years you should talk to your physician about end-of-life matters, like Living Will type stuff. Fairly benign. But then upon reflection, a question comes to mind; why should that even have to be in a piece of government legislation? Shouldn't it be common sense? Or at least left up to the individual and family, and brought to the doctor? The government should not be a part of that discussion, let alone telling doctors how to do their jobs.

I think that is the nose of the camel in the tent. Next, there may be 'guidelines' as to how to determine if a patient is a candidate for what kind of 'end-of-life' options. and so it goes, until who knows where it will end up. Now I could be somewhat paranoid, and so could a whole bunch of other people. But history can teach us a thing or two about how governments work when they want more power. They work for it gradually, a little bit at a time. We need to be vigilant and alert, and civilized. Please, lets be civilized.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

And another thing...

Well, here's an article on something I had thought about with Mr. Obama's idea of healthcare; end-of-life issues. That whole concept will change, if this thing becomes a reality I'm afraid.

'End-of-Life' Counseling Intensifies Health Care Debate

FOXNews - Wendell Goler, Stephen Clark - ‎55 minutes ago‎
A provision in the House health care bill would provide Medicare coverage for an end-of-life consultation, leading some to believe that the Obama administration is looking to save money by pressuring insurers to provide less coverage to seniors in the ...
Reuters - Washington Post - Bloomberg - Voice of America
This headline was pulled from the Google news page. I don't know if the links will be live or not. Anyways, take a look and see how you feel about the idea. Then maybe you can try and tell your congress person or senator, if they'll listen, if they care or they just want to tow the line and do what Mr. Obama, Ms. Pelosi, and Mr Ried tell them to.

Health Care?

Mr. Obama has been in office around six months and has stirred up some controversy with his 'health care' plan. At this point, a lot of people don't like it, apparently.

The idea is to make it affordable for more people, as many as possible, to have health care. To do this, as I understand it, the government seems to want to fashion our health plan to something like England's or Canada's health plan. Something they call, 'single payer'. With the government being the single payer.

Now conservative radio talk show hosts think its a bad idea. They talk about health rationing. For a while, this confused me because I didn't know how they meant it. Then I finally asked a health care professional who worked on the financial end of health care, and she explained it like this; the program works well for maintenance type doctor visits, annual check-ups and things like that, but it won't allow for prolong types of treatment, say for cancer, or kidney issues. That, apparently is where the rationing comes into play.

Now once you get to that point, I don't know if you can pay with you own money, if you can afford it, or not. I know that there are people from other countries, England and Canada, who come here for certain types of treatments that they cannot get in their own countries. If they come to us for their treatments, and we become like them, health-care wise, then where would we go? Where would everyone else go that would have come to us?

So to take this situation, that the government wants to hoist upon us, to a logical conclusion, if the government won't take care of us once we become a shall we say chronic maintenance case, do we just wait to die? Is that what they expect us to do? Are we ready for that? How can anybody be ready for that?

Based on the responses to some of the congresspeoples little hometown meetings about it, it hasen't gone well for them. People, congressional constituants, aren't happy about it. They're protesting and complaining, loudly. Resisting the ideas, and the Democrates don't like it. They're saying it's organized right wing protesters. But, if it's the governments idea, and the people don't like it, shouldn't the government listen to us? Don't we have a representitive government, of the people, by the people, and for the people?

There are also allegations that the congress-people have not read this bill, or even know what's in it. And they want to put it into action, against our wishes? Also, the protests have gotten louder, if you will, because time has gone by and people have found out what this bill would entail, and they don't like it. So they're not just complaining to complain. there's something seriously wrong with this health care plan.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Six months now

Well, we've had more time with our 'new' president. Some radio people say his ratings are falling. With the things he's trying to do, fix the economy by spending billions and billions, change the healthcare system and working out his foriegn policies, people are getting a better picture of what he is doing. Some of it may be ok, and some of it is scary.

I listen to conservative talk radio and they don't like a thing the president is doing, way too far to the left. But there's a part of me that wants to give him a chance. I'm not sure that left is all bad. Now I've had some ideas about the healthcare polices he wants to introduce, I'm a little concerned about those but I'm a little too tired to get into it right now. So I'll save it for later. But one thing keeps coming to my mind when I here about him spending so much money for things, bailouts, stimulus package(s), healthcare proposals, and other stuff I can't recall right now. Where's all the money coming from to pay for all this? Borrowing and taxation are the obvious answers, but how will that impact the future of this country? Somewhere in my mind, it doesn't add up anymore, it is illogical and doesn't make sense. I wonder about the future.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Time has gone by and some say that the president and cabinet don't know what they're doing. It seems they're scrambling to try and fix things, and they're also trying to enact some really left-wing stuff in the mean time.

A lot of this is second hand info, but I had heard in the media that Obama is going to delay some of the tax hikes he was planning for the economy. A lot of people think that's a good idea. Nancy Pelosi doesn't think so, she would have put the tax hikes into effect much sooner. There's an insight to what her agenda is.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

A New Year, A New President

Well, here we are, a new president at the beginning of a new year. I'm glad I'm not in his shoes. It will be interesting to see what he does with all that power. So far it seems as though he's treading a path that's pretty centrist. Interesting as all the talk-radio people thinking he's going to go off to the left. Time will tell, as they say.