health insurance reform, my ass

this whole health insurance debate really wore me out. i suspect it wore out a lot of folks. while most of us were the hare, sprinting toward the finish line of actual healthcare reform, the insurance lobby was the turtle, a gazillionaire turtle.

the turtle snickered and laughed as we sped by and got excited about our early lead. he knew he had enough cash, coke, prostitutes, and congressional closet skeletons lined up to defeat any real healthcare reform. and he was right.

at the end of the day, the american public is stuck holding their dicks, yet again. maybe we'll get real healthcare reform passed 50 years from now when we have this opportunity again.

why am i bringing this up now? well i was reading about the death of folk musician vic chestnutt. it's unfortunate; he was pretty awesome. something jumped out of the associated press story. read this:

However, Chesnutt had recently struggled with a lawsuit filed by a Georgia hospital after he racked up surgery bills totaling some $70,000, the Athens newspaper reported. He said he couldn't afford more than hospitalization insurance and couldn't keep up with the payments.

The problems baffled his Canadian bandmates, Chesnutt said.

"There's nowhere else in the world that I'd be facing the situation I'm in right now. They cannot understand what kind of society would inflict that on their population," he said. "It's terrifying."

i know most people don't know who vic chestnutt is, or give a shit that he was unhappy with the healthcare system in america. but he was right. the man was confined to a wheelchair for twenty-five years, and surgery left him a felon. that's the system we have. and somehow, with democratic control of both houses and the executive branch, we're not fixing it.

thanks, lieberman. i imagine your insurance lobby buddies paid well for your vote. in case you forgot what you said in 2006, here's a reminder: