Sunday, November 02, 2008

Trouble! Trouble! Boil and Bubble!

Some of my blogging friends may notice that a link that was listed as one of my favorite sites a popular health blog is now missing and some of you may notice that when you visit there I am no longer around. My rant was not appreciated and it was suggested that maybe I should leave. To say that I was told off is putting it mildly. I was not quite kicked out so I guess I could have stayed but I have disagreed at other times with some of the articles posted and some of the things that a few of the people have said. It all sort of hit a boiling point although I think I really wasn't quite boiling. I would call it more a slow simmer.. My mistake was in saying so. I decided to take up this persons suggestion and I hit the delete button. I didn't think that I had come across to hard. My rant is now gone from the site because when I deleted my account I totally disappeared from the site. All that remains is the punch that I got on the nose so to speak.

One thing that is bothering me so much lately has to do with the policies of the American health insurance system that is leaving so many people out in the cold. People have an impossible task of getting insured when they have any pre-existing conditions and if they can get somebody to cover them their premiums are out of reach. Many people are having to decide whether to buy medications or to buy food and they are the lucky ones. Anything that points the system into even further erosion and lack of compassion raises my dander.

One article I read, a while back, had to do with doctors maybe being able to fire their patients if they did not make the life style changes that they had suggested and that maybe insurance companies should not have to cover people for their self inflicted conditions. I just wonder who is going to make all these decisions for these people. I am not saying that the person who wrote it advocates this practice. The position of the writer was not very clear. Many people who responded thought that this is a good idea and would cause people to take better care of themselves. I think that Big Brother would be watching you even more than he already does. It also has the potential to leave most people without insurance or care unless you have truck loads of money. To me all the American system is concerned with is money. It all boils down to that. Again my opinion only. Please note that I am talking about the system and not the care givers.

Another thing that bugged me was a comment by one of the readers about how Americans should tough up and stash away an emergency fund. Apparently this person had done that and was covered for a coronary he had when uninsured. He figured people with cable shouldn't whine. He did say that maybe he was being a little Polyannish. WHAT! All we have to do is get rid of our cable? Who would have thunk it? If it were all that simple the cable companies would be doomed.

Some of the articles tend to over simplify things by stating that most of our ailments are totally curable by following some very rigid dietary and exercise regimes and that most health problems are caused by not doing so and that most people could be off their medications if they did so. I feel note this is my personal feeling and maybe others don't feel this way and that is O.K. that sometimes the site was being a little judgmental. Sometimes people can get somewhat extreme. This tends to cause some people to go over to the legalistic side of things. Legalism can be found just about anywhere. Legalists loose their ability to have real compassion for others.

More and more people who are joining are trying to sell something. They do not directly advertise but do try to lure you to their sites where they would be happy to sell you something. I know...it is a free world. I don't have a problem with people expressing their opinions or trying to sell something. I am upset that on an open forum I would get attacked if I expressed a mildly negative opinion. To say anything but THE SITE IS SIMPLY AMAZING pushes the wrong button and if you do that you get accused of being an uncaring person.

I have been reading some blogs and talking to some of the blogers in the States who are going through horrible times regarding their lack of health care funding. It makes me cry. It breaks my heart. For all the things that we have been going through we have not had to suffer this worry and stress to any large extent on top of everything else. I can't imagine having to go through that.

Maybe I am being over sensitive over some of these articles and comments. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut. Maybe what I wrote was misunderstood. Maybe I should have been more careful in how I expressed my opinion. To my friends that enjoy the site, I am not trying to get you to leave. There is a lot of good there. Most of the people are wonderful. The lady who created the site is amazing. I do not wish her any harm and hope she prospers in the pursuit of her dreams. I probably need to learn to spit out the hay. Hay by it's very nature is hard to swallow. I should know that by now. I should simply spit it out and move on to the green grass. I am writing this so you know where I am coming from and I hope that my rant over there has not offended any of my friends.

I wish good health to you all and hope that you still visit me here.

Just a little note to Fluffy because from my comments on her site she has come to the conclusion that Canadians have fur and the raising of my dander will probably keep the myth going, I sure hope she does not now think that we eat grass too. Hahaha! She cracks me up. Hahaha!

8 comments:

Jientje said...

Freedom of speech?

Fluffy said...

I thought everybody ate grass.

Saucy said...

Oh, Darling!

Thank you for commenting on my blog, it seems that both you and I have stepped in "it" over the past few days, haven't we?

I love the USA and I love being Canadian. Our "socialized" medicine has worked wonders for me, my family (two parents are cancer survivors and my granny) and my daughter... living proof that the government can care for the weakest of the lambs! She is thirteen and thriving as a result of years of physical and occupational therapy, speech pathology, etc. when her prognosis was horrible and now just look at her in all her glory of being a normal teenager destined to drive me crazy!

I can choose my own doctor, my own specialist and my own hospital. We have the best of care. My $25,000 per year meds are covered, no questions asked. Yes, we pay taxes. And when we need help, it's there.

Good luck to you tomorrow and beyond... take care! xoxox

Eve said...

I believe I know which site you are referring to. I just hopped over there and checked my list of friends and didn't find you. I don't visit it much anymore - I thought it was getting kind of boring. Sorry I missed your rant. That probably took the yawn out of the day. lol

Unknown said...

I don't know what site you are referring to, or what the rant was about, but I do know that you are right on about more and more people not being able to afford health care. I have diabetes type II, and while it can be controlled somewhat with diet and exercise, it will never just go away if I exercised more or if I ate a different diet. I am also gluten intolerant, which means I can not eat anything that contains even very small traces of wheat, rye or barley. Imagine not being able to enjoy a beer after work with your peers, because it would make you sick if you did.

Imagine having to bake all your own bread, or having to pay more than $4.00 per small loaf IF you can find a loaf of gluten free bread. All I am saying here, is that none of us asks for the diseases we get, and all of us should have access to affordable health care if we do get sick.

I not only got rid of cable tv, I got rid of my HOUSE because I couldn't afford it. We have lived in a travel trailer for more than 8 years now, by choice, so that we can afford to live. We are self insured because we can not afford the high cost of health insurance premiums. We just can not justify paying $18,000 per year for 'what if'.

The Invisible Mo said...

I'm sorry I couldn't have read your lovely rant. I dropped that community a while back. I just had too many online things going and I had lost interest in it. It got too big, too many of the new people were as you said, in it for what they could get from it. I got tired of the rhetoric. It didn't have the feel of the original group of people who supported each other in more ways than one. I found, too, that you can only express your opinion if it meets certain criteria and "they" agree with the ideas you are trying to express. When I posted my blog about the article concerning "Resistant Starch" it got a really cool reception and very noticably no comments from either of the two main people of Iowa Avenue. The article was well researched, the studies have been going on for years and it was written by a dietician.
Then when a discussion was posted concerning flouride treatments in water (with the opinion being against) I commented on it about my children. My daughters were given flouride drops as babies and neither has ever yet had a cavity. They are 31 and 34. My sons did not get the drops because the practice fell out of favor. If my son, David had had those drops he would have healthy teeth. The article was removed almost immediately. I thought discussions meant you could post your own opinion, but apparently not.
Anyway, I sure agree with you about the health issues. I don't consider "socialist" to be synonymous with "evil". Health care for everybody should be a worldwide standard. They need to stop letting the insurance industry and the credit industry run the world.

Christine said...

Thank you guys for you support. It means a lot to me. In the end and the more I think of it, I am glad I said something. I hope they do talk to the person who took such offense that instead of having an civilized dialogue, he decided to take a personal swipe at me. He is a time bomb waiting to go off on somebody else. The story does not end here either but I will not go into that. Best to just let it go.

@ mo: They deleted your article? You are kidding! Hahaha! Why in the world would they do that? I think these things should be open to discussion.

The Invisible Mo said...

They didn't delete my article. They deleted their own article after I commented on it with an opposing opinion. No one else commented at all.