Am I crazy? A monster?

Already the headlines are about the lawsuits blossoming over the air race crash. Does no one accept that sometimes bad things happen? That we don't have to assign blame and make money off that blame? Yes, it's tough losing relatives and friends. And sometimes we are quite innocently in the wrong place at the wrong time. Does that mean we have to sue someone? Are all societies as litigious as the US public?

Those folks chose to be at the air races, in harm's way. Yes, someone should pay the medical bills and someone should help out the families who may have lost a breadwinner (not that there is much bread to be won these days) but does it have to be through ugly lawsuits that will go on for years, enriching mostly the attorneys?

We lost a contractor in Carson Valley who leaves behind a wife and children. A fund has been set up in the community for donations. Social Security, which the sociopaths in Congress are attempting to eliminate, will help out a bit and one hopes that he had life insurance. And perhaps the wife can find a job or already has one. Unfortunately, it will be hard for the kids to get work to help out since the jobs formerly held by kids are now held by men and women in their fifties, sixties and seventies who need to eat and feed their families.

What if we didn't have Republicans fighting to destroy Social Security? What if Republicans weren't fighting to eliminate the fledgling health care plan? What if Republicans weren't working against an economy that could support all of us?

Dream on, old lady Democrat.

Questions

If individuals or families cannot afford to buy health insurance, how can they afford to pay the fines that will be levied upon them if they don't buy insurance?

I ask this after reading an Associated Press article that states that the latest plan from Montana Sen. Max Baucus would levy fines for not having health insurance, starting at $750 for an individual and $1,500 for families.

Does this mean that more people will die because if they show up at ER without an insurance card they will be fined? And turned away? And how will anyone know if all 50 million or so of the currently uninsured individuals buy a health insurance policy? Won't this be a bureaucratic nightmare? A whole new police agency? Wouldn't it be cheaper to offer a government funded health insurance option?

I often wonder lately, is there is anyone in Congress besides Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders who has courage and sanity?

Senate Republicans are just plain nasty

I just read the first few paragraphs of an AP story discussing the probable Senate health care bill and am furious. No public option and no requirement that businesses offer health plans. Just read an update and it gets worse. The whole shebang to go through the insurance companies. You know, those creeps that have turned health insurance into an orgy of profit with little or no benefit to the people paying the premiums. Oh, yes, I exaggerate but only a little. I have friends that go through hell to get insurance, then pay such exorbitant premiums that it hardly benefits them to have the coverage. Then, every time they turn in a claim they have to re-submit at least three times to get it paid.

What happens to people when they go to Washington? Suddenly it's all about re-election and forget the people who elected you. The lobbying scum crawls out of the K Street sewers and gives them lots of money for re-election and suddenly they know so much better than any little old citizen back home what's best for this country.

Rather than turn health care over to the insurance people we should outlaw for-profit insurance and send all the current insurance execs to jail for life, preferably to one of the real nasty ones such as the Nevada State Prison.

The members of Congress have shown that they are not going to do any of the obviously smart things to provide health care insurance for all the people in this country. They aren't going to rein in the insurance people or the drug folks. They aren't going to jettison the phony Medicare enhancement policies or the horrible Medicare drug plan. Of course not. The lobbyists would cut off their election funds. So they will come up with a phony piece of excrement rewarding all the wrong people and they'll probably figure out a way to raise taxes on the strangled middle class to do it.

It's time for the citizens of this country to rise up, get our pitchforks, our vats of tar and loads of feathers, then take a trip to Washington. Start with the lobbyists--drag them into the street, dress them up in tar and feathers then march them over to Congress so they can watch the same thing happen to all their best friends in the House and Senate. Then put them all on a train and send them to Camp Baucus, except for the Blue Dog Dems and we'll send them to a no-kill shelter for re-training. I'll send word ahead to Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders. There may be others worth saving but those are the only two I know about.