(no subject)
Okay, so as a future physician, a $5000 "gift" for health care is a complete misdirection and is merely a distraction from the actual problem at hand. I had bloodwork done as a prerequisite for medical school to measure titers for required vaccinations (this measures the antibodies in your bloodstream and compares them to a baseline value that indicates whether or not you are still technically immune to that particular microbe). That alone without insurance would have cost me almost $1000. Bearing that in mind, how much do you think it costs a cancer patient to effectively, aggressively treat their illness? I can give you a good idea...when my mother was in treatment, she went in for a session once every three weeks for diagnostics and chemotherapy, along with counteractive medication. Each individual session cost at least $12,000. What does $5000 do for someone without insurance who is diagnosed with a chronic condition? Next to NOTHING. You might as well put your chemotherapy on layaway for all the good that does. At the end, you'll still be left in a horrible amount of debt. I say this "gift" is a distractor because it ignores the real reform that needs to happen in the actual cost of treatment. If that were reformed, $5000 might actually make a difference.
I'm not going to touch the abortion thing. If you know me, you know it will take me pages upon pages to comment on that, and I just don't have the energy.
McCain's education reform plan leaves much to be desired. Vouchers are not the end-all, be-all of education reform. Inducing competition between teachers in school systems also is a touchy subject, but I'm a believer in rewarding good, hard work that produces positive results. That, to me, is what being "fair" is all about.
Economically, we're screwed for the next couple of years anyway. A crisis of this magnitude will not be solved overnight, and the sooner people realize that, the sooner we can get on the road to recovery. People are looking for a quick fix within the next four years, but in a rut like this, it will take a lot longer than that to dig ourselves out.
I would have liked to see this debate without McCain attacking Obama at every turn. At a certain point during the debate, I thought to myself, "Wait...is he actually answering these questions? I haven't heard one response that hasn't included an attack on Obama." As of now it's obvious where my loyalties lie, but nonetheless I am still interested in hearing McCain's opinions...when he HAS them.
To conclude, I read the ABC news website live blog during the debate, and saw a post that looked something like this:
"Obama is MUSLIM I mean look at his middle name HUSSEIN let's take a good long look at this people, dont be blind to this he will ruin us. if you want to raise taxes vote for obama and if you want them to stay the same vote for McCain"
Bad grammer not-so-much exaggerated, sadly.
The fact that people in my country believe this is heartbreaking. Truly, utterly heartbreaking. I really don't know what to think or how to feel about being a U.S. citizen anymore. It's people like this that embarrass us domestically and abroad. People of the world: I apologize for his/her ignorance and sheer stupidity. There are others like them, but not all. I suppose that's a good argument for the possible redemption of humankind, no?
Done for now.