<html><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><div>Well John---if you re read my email more carefully. I was not all inclusive. Nor did I pay particular attention to who was the harshest or most favorable. Quite frankly, I don't really care whose in favor and whose not. That said. I believe my bigger point was----and remains---who on this forum has paid more than lip service when it's come to finding a solution to a health care system that has been F'd up for decades. And forgive me, John, but it seems u were getting screwed before this Health agenda moved forward so why are u so hostile? </div><div><br></div><div>Now. Before you misread the spirit of my email again. I am asking a question in regard to my remark about lip service. So, if u have been actively working with policy makers in Springfield and DC on any issues related to The health care industry---especially the one you have been held hostage to--and your work in the area of this complaint has been to champion the rights of others who have suffered like you---perhaps created a group or joined a group who has been pushing CHANGE by lobbying the policy makers who sit on whatever subcommittee you need to influence---and all those years of consistently pushing your agenda forward to no avail has resulted in the Monday Night quarterbacking I am reading in this forum---then I humbly withdraw my previous comments and offer my sincerest apologies </div><div> <br><br>Sent from my iPhone</div><div><br>On Mar 23, 2010, at 5:03 PM, "John W." <<a href="mailto:jbw292002@gmail.com">jbw292002@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div>On this list, three of us have been and are the harshest critics of the new health care 'reform' bill: Carl, Dave Johnson, and me. I'm curious which of the three of us has NOT, in the eyes of Bob and Melodye, worked our asses off to try to make both the local community and the larger society a better place, according to our lights and talents. Name some fucking names.</div>
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<div>The way I see it, most of the folks on this list have decent health insurance, so they have the luxury of being "ambivalent" about the health care bill, reminding us of its many virtues and counseling us to take a 'wait and see' approach. I, on the other hand, have no health insurance, and will NOT have Medicare when I'm 65 due to a quirk in the law over which I had and have no control. I can't speak for Carl and Dave, but I have actually suffered the indignity of sitting in the Frances Nelson Clinic, getting a different doctor every time, KNOWING that there were tests not being performed because Frances Nelson could not perform them in-house, and having pills shoved at me which I KNEW would do no good but which were all that Frances Nelson had to offer. Having to present proof of income documents over and over so that even Frances Nelson's precious and scarce resources would not be "wasted" on me. </div>
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<div>The only decent medical care I've received in LIFE was at McKinley Clinic when I was a student at UIUC. They have government-run, "socialized" medicine there; the doctors are on salary and all the services are "free", even the prescription meds, paid for by a student fee. There I finally found a physician (female - God bless her) who cared about me as a human being, and ordered tests that were based on what I as a patient NEEDED rather than on what I could afford or on what paid the doctor the most money. Sadly, when I ceased to be a student I could no longer avail myself of her services. God bless her.</div>
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<div>So I'm afraid I can't be as blase as the rest of you about this shitty bill which leaves health insurance companies firmly in control. Nothing at all has changed for me, not a God-damned thing. And you can bet that if nothing has changed for me, it's not changing for millions of other Americans who are not, perhaps, as articulate as I am.</div>
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<div>Oh, yes, I forgot. Something HAS changed for me after all, or it will in - what? 2014? I'll be mandated to purchase a terrible private-sector health insurance plan, with money I don't have and with deductibles and co-pays so high I won't ever be able to actually use it, or else I'll be fined for my failure to purchase it. Please forgive me if I don't see that as a benefit.</div>
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<div>Yeah, I'll shut up now. Every time I try to talk personal realities "on the ground" rather than abstractions, all the liberals' eyes start darting around the room, looking for an escape route. Don't think I don't see it.</div>
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<div>John W.<br><br></div>
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<div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 5:31 PM, Bob Illyes <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:illyes@uiuc.edu"><a href="mailto:illyes@uiuc.edu">illyes@uiuc.edu</a></a>></span> wrote:</div>
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<div class="im">Melodye writes:<br><br>"It never ceases to amaze me how some of the biggest critics (on every subject) coming out of the shadows have done---- what?"<br><br></div>Precisely, Melodye.<br><br>Some pretext is generally behind this lack of accomplishment. A "Christian" pretext is that because of Original Sin it is not possible for a person to do good. A "Marxist" pretext is that the middle class will always prevent political progress, which isn't possible because the middle class is not yet destroyed. Market Fundamentalism supplies its own unsubstantiated theology. But don't be fooled. These are just excuses to hold in contempt those who do their part to leave the world better rather than worse. These critics get off on contempt. They attempt to set up abusive relationships with those who would do good.<br>
<br>On a slightly different subject, I confess I have never seen anything quite so revolting as the Social Darwinian arguments coming from opponents of the efforts of our first black President and our first woman Speaker. (Their race and gender have nothing to do with this, right?) In the Gilded Age, it was seriously proposed that charity was vice, because it lessened the pressure on those on the bottom to change their evil ways. And now the new Gilded Age has arrived, with the same recycled pseudo-scientific nonsense, that we all already get what we deserve.....<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>Bob</font>
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