WELCOME TO THE BLOG OF POPE JOHN THE TALL, LEADER OF THE ALL JOHN ALL THE TIME WORLD CHURCH


******PLEASE NOTE******

(Notice I said please.)

To those of you who are new to "the Pope" and the "AJATTWC", the following various posts are the official communications of yours truly, Pope John The Tall, or as I'm known in many circles, PJTT.

I aspired to the position of Pope of the AJATTWC several years ago, after the Roman Catholics elected Joseph Ratzinger, a German Cardinal, as their Pope; I figured if he could do it, so could I.

Despite what would seem to be a "religious" theme, I try not to play favorites: I'm satirical/irreverent about everything, in an attempt to give my readers a few yucks; that is the goal. If I haven't made you laugh, well, I tried, and I hope I'm given an "A" for the effort. (Or at least a really solid "C".)

I further hope that my faithful readers (all several of them) and any of you who wander in from the cold of the Internet, will derive much solace and spiritual awakening from my timeless prose, and, as I so often refer to it, the "soothing balm of Johnism"; if you don't, how sad for you, because I'm a pretty funny guy. (My daughter tells me, regularly, that I'm "silly"; I suspect that she's right.)

Please note that everything on my blog is meant to be fun, and in no way insulting to anyone, unless of course you're a politician, then you can assume I intended to insult you. (Hey, it goes with the job, guys; if you can't take the heat, then the harder they fall.)

Never mind.

Anyway, welcome and thanks for stopping by; please feel free to peruse to your heart's content (there is a large archive of my past posts, going back several hundred years, in the right-hand column), and please be sure to make a large donation at the door as you leave. (It's tax-deductible.)

Speaking of leaving, as I make my exit, and probably none too soon, here's something from the Book of Excretions, Apollo 13: Dodgers 6...

"Blessed are the lazy, for although they don't accomplish much, they're well rested."

Enjoy. (Or don't, it's still a free country. It is still a free country, isn't it? They haven't changed that as far as I know, have they?)





Saturday, October 19, 2013

Doing The Math (Somebody Has To Do It)


Yes, that's right, sports fans, your ol' Pope (Pope John The Tall of the All John All The Time World Church and Gambling Casino; see above for the explanation of my meteoric rise to this lofty pinochle) is finally back from his self-enforced hiatus from writing here on the blog for the AJATTWC; I'm sure you've missed me terribly.

All I can say is that I've been busy; being Pope has some tremendous duties and responsibilities: there's all those holy cards to bless, all that sacramental wine to be tasted and approved, keeping track of the Sisters from the Society Of Our Lady Of The Holy Fundament (see my post dated 6/10/11), boy, the list just goes on and on, much like I do sometimes.

Anyway, I'm back, and like it or not, I have some comments I want to make, so there.

I was recently made aware of a video by a man named Dave Ramsey by someone close to me, and after viewing Mr. Ramsey and listening to his remarks in said video, I thought I might take a moment (or two) and respond. (If you're not familiar with Mr. Ramsey, I quote from the WikiPedia article on him:
            "David L. Ramsey III is an American financial author, radio host, television personality, and motivational speaker. His show and writings strongly focus on encouraging people to get out of debt.")

I have on several occasions availed myself to Mr. Ramsey's radio show and some of his various writings, and I will tell you that I like his ideas and mostly agree with his points of view. He is engaging, articulate, funny and, as far as I can tell, clear-thinking.

The video (see below for the link) that he produced was entitled "Dave Ramsey lays out the facts of Obamacare for both Democrats and Republicans", and was featured on the website Poor Richard's News on October 11th of this year. In it he gives his take on the Affordable Care Act, and it's implications for all of us.


Mr. Ramsey makes the theme of his talk "do the math", and repeatedly returns to that phrase throughout; his general idea is that, Democrat or Republican (and I assume those of our citizens who are Libertarians, Green Party, National Socialists, et. al., are included as well), everyone should do the math on Obamacare and realize that, gee, guess what, our health insurance premiums, for those of us who have existing healthcare policies, are going to go up as a result of the enactment of the ACA.

As far as I can tell, he's right: somebody is going to pay for all those cheap health insurance policies. And that somebody is all of us.

Now a little "full disclosure" here:

A) I have considered myself a "moderate Republican" all my adult life, having voted for GOP Presidential candidates starting in 1972 with Richard Nixon, and continuing through 2004 when I finally broke with the Party and voted for John Kerry, because I couldn't imagine another four years of that crack-brained moron George W. Bush. I made another break in 2012 when I voted for a third party candidate, namely Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party, when I felt that Mitt Romney had no more business being President than my 10-year old grandson, and I couldn't bring myself to vote of Barrack Obama.

B) I agree completely with the views expressed by Dave Ramsey in his video.

I do not like Obamacare, for reasons too numerous to delve into here; suffice to say that many of it's prime characteristics are anathema to me as a small-government, controlled-spending, personal freedom first Republican kind of guy.

The problem (you knew there was one coming, didn't you?) with Mr. Ramsey's position is this: Dave, it's easy to be against something you don't like or of which you disapprove; how about some concrete, positive ideas as an alternative for a change?

Our genius GOP legislators in the Congress just recently managed to hamstring this country once again with their hair-brained idea to shut-down the Federal government and force a reexamination of Obamacare, with the thought to defund it. In the process, they damaged the fragile recovery our economy is experiencing, cost the country an estimated $24 BILLION in lost business and lowered our already shaky esteem in the world marketplace.

And in the midst of all the rhetoric and accusations back and forth between the Republican Tea-Party Congressmen and the President, not once did I hear ANYONE advance a viable alternative to the ACA.

And like it or not, as Mr. Ramsey keeps repeating in his video, everybody should do the math, but that's not enough; somebody, somewhere needs to stand up and take it one step further and suggest a better idea.

Because we have approximately 46 million of our citizens here in this country that lack healthcare insurance, and thus, access to care for their medical needs.

46 million people with no insurance that allows them to see a doctor, get treatment for a sickness or injury, a prescription for medication, or any other healthcare-related process.

And the math is that these 46 million people will eventually show up at clinics and emergency rooms in need of help for an sickness/injury, which by the way might have been completely avoided had they had access to a doctor's ongoing care in the first place, and lacking the ability to pay for their treatment (and Federal law says the healthcare provider must treat them), they run up bills that are then absorbed by the hospital/clinic/whatever, and guess what, folks: that expense is then added on to the cost of ALL of our healthcare, in the form of increased fees for doctors, nurses, facilities, medicines, etc. and passed on to all of us.

Don't believe me? Get a hold of a hospital bill and see what they charge for a dosage of Tylenol.

Yep, do the math: the lack of health insurance for all Americans costs each of us plenty.

Now I suspect that Mr. Ramsey, given his points of view and proclivities, is a very conservative Republican, and good for him; for example, he drags out the very GOP talking point of "privatized" Social Security accounts for each person in the country. (Investing in mutual funds for the average person as an alternative to Social Security? Brilliant. Let me give you a quote from the prospectus from one of the funds I'm invested in:

"As with any mutual fund, there is no guarantee that the fund will
achieve its objective. The fund’s share price fluctuates, which means you could lose
money by investing in the fund."

Yeah, great idea, dude.)

He also mentions the rights of all of us under the 2nd Amendment, and I haven't a clue what that has to do with Obamacare, but, whatever.

So I have a feeling that, given Dave's rather conservative approach, he's not going to like my "better suggestion" to the ACA, something that he didn't have in his speech. Ready? Here goes:

One-payer. As my daughter would say, easy-peasy. Or at least extend Medicare-like benefits to all U.S. citizens.

Yes, that goes against everything the GOP stands for and believes in (as do I): the free-market system, the profit principle, entrepreneurship, apple pie and the American flag.

Big pharma, hospital corporations, doctors, insurance companies, all those folks would have to find ways to survive in a climate of "walk into an emergency room or a clinic or doctor's office, present your ID card, receive care or treatment, no charge."

I can hear all the air being sucked out of the room while my Republican friends read this. But it would cost less if everyone took a fair cut and just provided quality care, period.

Dave mentions "communism" in his video, and that's what one-payer healthcare probably sounds like, right? But "communism" is defined in my dictionary as "an economic theory or system of the ownership of property, means of production and distribution by the community or society".

Nobody is going to own Merck, or Blue Cross or ABC Hospital Corporation but the stockholders; the distribution of funds would just be different.

One-payer, everybody is covered.

Do the math, Dave, because either way, under the present system or under Obamacare, it's costing us all.

And we're all getting screwed.

Love and stethoscopes,

PJTT

Dawn

Dawn