The Mojometer - No, I haven't taken any anatomy classes
LEARN
The quoted articles say that California hospitals charge insurance companies loads more than services cost (53% more). I assume they’re doing this because the insurance companies will reject a big chunk of their claims and they’re hoping that it’ll all even out somehow (see how I give the hospitals the benefit of the doubt!). However, this is still a pretty douchy thing to do because the insurance buttholes will just use these figures to justify upping rates. Also, by 2014, everyone is supposed to have insurance and there may not be enough doctors to fit the demand. I was a big fan of the single-payer tax plan, but I don’t know what to do with the thing we ended up with. The government is welcome to give me healthcare, but I don’t feel particularly inclined to pay for it. I can only hope that the current plan is a stepping stone to a better plan in a few years time.
ACT
I guess, as with everything else, we’re on our own. There’s no money and no willingness to fund universal healthcare. We’ll have to do everything in our power to postpone the inevitable decline…and if cancer or some other unavoidable ailment hits us, we’ll have go into debt or go without (I never said I was a ray of sunshine, it looks like I’ll have to switch to my back up mojometer). My own physical fitness plan is to eat as much junk food as possible and hope that the chemicals preserve me for decades. I guess this plan won’t work for everyone, so I’m hoping that SuperMom and Corrupt Angel will accept the requests I have sent them to join forces. Ma (as I call her – she loves it) and Rupty (ditto) have solid plans to make sure schools provide healthy lunches and to build community gardens. (EDIT TO ADD: I’ve just received word from Monkey Woman – MoMo for short – that we’ve also teamed up in a powdered StinkyButt franchise, sounds delicious!) I oozed around my hood with a walking checklist and have determined that it’s “A disaster for walking!”. We need sidewalks, crosswalks, speed bumps, trash-removal and more police patrol. In order to fund these fixes, we’ll need to 1) get involved with city council (if my poor-neighborhood even qualifies as within city limits. While there, I’ll blast them with the Evil Eye and Tedium, so they vote for anything to make the meetings end), to try and ramp up funding support and 2) Send out feelers to see if there are any rich peeps or businesses that would like to adopt a street, and, finally, 3) Organize a neighborhood trash-removal event where we all go out pick up crap like convicts on the side of a freeway.
This will be our neighborhood trash-removal outfit
IMAGINE
Thanks to this week’s videos/readings, I imagine a world where advances in science, technology and New Media have rendered our physical selves obsolete. I only saw half of the movie Surrogates, but I think it’s going to be something like that; we strap on a headpiece and our more attractive robot selves go out and do awesome stuff. So, all this physical fitness stuff will be totally unnecessary. But, in the immediate future…I see the neighborhood coming together to clean up the streets. Once that’s done, we’ll plant a community garden in the vacant lot by my house; tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, peppers, corn, etc. will be available to all residents. Our fund-raising efforts will have been successful and sidewalks, crosswalks, speed bumps will beautify our streets and make it safe to walk here. This one neighborhood will inspire other neighborhoods to follow suit, and before you know it, we’ll have a Healthy Alliance of well-over 500 members, all taking action and making their communities safer and healthier. Rainbows and kittens for everyone (oh, good, back up mojometer kicked in)!
