Health care ... or careless ... or care less ...

Seems to me that the way a nation/government shows how it cares about its people is by the way it takes care of them -- and their health.

There's military for security, police for protection/law enforcement, schools for its education, fire departments for protection and life saving...

So what about health care?

When it comes to health care for its people, the US Government does not give a single drop of shit.

Although, to be fair - some US citizens do enjoy excellent "socialized" health care. The government does care about them.

I'm talking about the folks we elect to office - and their families. They - and their families - receive federally provided excellent medical coverage. These are the same people who self-righteously vote against those same rights for the rest of us.

Supreme Court justices - and their families - also enjoy the same excellent "socialized" medical coverage, and they are in the position of ruling against that same right for the rest of us.

So much for the old constitutional chestnut, "US citizens are the employers of those who run their government."

I realize I must be clear about the term "socialized" medicine.

The reason the word socialism is in quotes is because it's not a matter of socialism vs capitalism. It's a matter of whether the US wants to provide decent health care for its citizenry or not. The "how" that happens is the big question in the US, not in other nations whose health care quality outdistance the US greatly.

France is a capitalist nation and it ranks #1 in its health care quality. Capitalist and socialist nations that provide quality health care for their people have not found their economic foundations shaken, stirred or even twisted.

I'd call it universal health care.

Tribal peoples dating back to the Big Bang know health care is a normal, accepted right of life. Health care among tribal peoples has always been a fact of human existence. No questions, no arguments, no negotiations.

Shaman, Medicine Men and Women, and other anointed health care givers who healed - or tried to - those in their community afflicted with physical or mental health issues, were considered special, gifted.

They freely dispensed their healing knowledge of herbs, spices, massage, acupressure, acupuncture, blood-letting and other - now generally questionable - practices intended to care for all health matters afflicting their neighbors.

Say - did you know there are conditions for which leeches actually work even today?

American doctors and nurses used to make house calls. (They still do in other nations as part of their government-provided health care provisions - did you know that?)

Until the money folks took over. When a doc or nurse practitioner visits a patient at home, they see the conditions in which their patients live which might contribute to their illness and can help heal their unhealthy lifestyles as well as the immediate sickness.

It was deemed much more "cost effective" to have everyone go to a central location - where patients can encounter many other germs, bacteria, ill people, the stress of being in a foreign environment, among people they don't know and among medical professionals forced into a position of not working for them as much as they are for bosses trying to save money.

Patients and medical professionals are forced to rely on insurance companies who work hard to avoid paying outright, rather than figure out how to pay, for care.

And they deny payment for lots of reasons: the treatment is unique, the treatment is experimental, the treatment might be *expensive,* the treatment is rare ... and of course (the best for last) - the patient is going to die anyway.

Um, we are all going to die anyway.

The question is the quality of life while we're here .

And why those in our government whom we have elected would prefer we go to bed worrying not just about our health care but our financial well being.

They'd rather we go to sleep worrying about whether we can afford to keep ourselves, our partners, relatives and children healthy; whether we have to go bankrupt paying for critical or chronic illness; how we can avoid medical expenses - cut corners - for ourselves and our kids.

They'd rather we lose sleep worrying about these things that are considered a basic human right in all other civilized (and even some not-so-civilized) nations; they'd rather we suffer financial and health care nightmares than dream of ways we can create a better life for ourselves, our families and our country.

See, worry creates stress, which creates health problems, which creates ....

But, that's how much the US Government cares about its people.

They will allow American people to wallow at the bottom of a list that evaluates health care quality among nations, but be thrilled that the US is #1 in spending our tax money on... what? What are its priorities?

I suggest you see Michael Moore's film, SICKO, which conservatives and liberals agree, tells it like it is about real health care issues in the US and other nations.

Among all the ridiculous arguments for and against a right of American health care, IMO, here is the real problem:

If Americans had a whit of self esteem? The moment they believe they deserve proper health care, that they - and their children - are worthy, are worth it? They'd insist on proper health care and would have it. Just that quickly.

The way people in the 37 countries who precede the US in health care quality do.

A must-see sorrowful, shameful US history chapter

This is the iconic image of the haunting history of the US Government's genocidal crusade to eliminate Indians and all tribal peoples from America.

Produced by ReelNative, a group of Native filmmakers, this is a disarmingly even handed recounting of a national history seeped in written and legal evidence; Supreme Court rulings outlining the sovereignty of tribal lands that went unheeded by President Andrew Jackson and southern states.

In fact, Jackson made it a primary goal to rid the nation of its Indian/tribal populations. In his promise to move the Cherokee people to a safe, sovereign region, he set off the Trail of Tears. The thousands of Cherokee were given blankets infested with smallpox. En route to their "new home" during the forced march they faced hunger, sickness, and exhaustion. More than 4,000 out of 15,000 of the Cherokee men, women and children "died" in a mission calculated to decimate their numbers.

You can see the full episodes online here as well as on PBS television stations, and the DVD is also available.

I guarantee you, even the most racist, hard-hearted person will be stricken by the insane, cruel, shockingly cold-hearted treatment of the law-abiding, peace-loving peoples (many of whom had adopted European ways, established an independent, constitutional democracy and addressed the US Government through legal and congressional channels) received at the hands of the US Government from which they are still recovering.

One particularly sickening piece of legislature passed by Jackson: the "Indian Removal Act."

More, the state of Georgia set up land grabs by white people of the Cherokee Nation in western Georgia when the Cherokee Nation was a legally sovereign country. Georgia's government simply ignored the law and stole the land from the Cherokee.

Feeling helpless to address the US Government in the way the government dictated - "legal" avenues - because it turned out to be a waste of time, many took the only path to any sort of autonomy they could: fighting back and violence. Even among themselves.

I have to watch these episodes in fairly short spurts because the information is so incredible - we have been so seriously misinformed about Native Americans and their treatment by the US Government - that it is heartbreaking to witness these facts.

The best part of this series is that, educated, we can all make certain this does not happen again - and try to attend to the destruction that has been needlessly imposed on tribal peoples for the centuries since Christopher Columbus landed.