The Dispatch has a strange definition of calm, thoughtful civility - not to mention accuracy
Hey Folks -
I've been going round and round with the brass at the local newsrag about their biased reporting on a number of fronts. Finally, I told them to more or less kiss off (You've seen some of it here already - I'll have a full report on the rest of it at some point).
I'll admit that when I finally quit trying to reason with them, I spoke relatively bluntly, but their response indicated that they didn't print my earlier letters - or even seriously consider their content because they were "rants" and needed more thoughtful civility.
Well, they can say that they disregarded what I had to say because I ranted thoughtlessly and uncivily, but directly below is a letter they recently found calm, thoughtful, and civil enough to publish. You decide whether they were honest with me.
I've put what I found objectionable in red and my inserted comments in blue.
- Uke Man
Don't put government in charge of health care
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Government-run health care? What a concept! Privately run health care? What a concept!
There are so many times I think how great it would be if only the government ran our health-care system, as has been suggested by some people. Sarcasm
Every time I fly, which is about a flight a week, I watch the Transportation Security Administration strip-search some 85-year-old grandma (Yeah, he sees this every week. Have you ever seen ANYONE get strip-searched?) while a cadre of Middle Eastern men (racism/profiling) with 4-foot turbans (Right!! 4-foot turbans) and 3-inch-thick sandals [platform shoes??] pass through security unmolested, and I think to myself, "Man, I wish the government ran the health-care industry." Sarcasm
I sit in a 4-mile parking lot in Chicago called the Dan Ryan Expressway while five lanes of traffic try to pass through a single open lane so eight guys can patch a pothole, and think, "If only the government ran hospitals and told doctors what to do." So, this guy would hire his own private sector pot-hole filler? Yeah, and he could hire a private firm to build the roads he needs when he arrives at whatever destination his weekly flights take him to.
I look at the Veterans Affairs hospitals and think, "All health care should be just like this." I wonder if he thought about that before we invaded Iraq. I wonder if he supported that invasion.
I consider the nearly bankrupt Social Security system, which pays a pittance to our elderly but still is on life support itself, [the actual situation on Social Security has been dealt with here in depth recently - below] and think, "Wow, man, if only Al Gore could put our health care in a lockbox, too! Hot dang!"
I admire our Democrat-controlled Congress with its 11 percent approval rating (now making even President Bush look like a popular overachiever [hyperbole ??]) and I think wistfully, "Why can't the Congress of these United States personally conduct all of my transactions around and concerning my health?"
Like jolly old England, where the average wait for an MRI is somewhere between 10 months and a decade or two. And where 70,000 people last year alone got tired of waiting for (or scared thinking about) a visit to a local hospital and flew to Spain, Morocco, India or elsewhere. This number is expected to be about 210,000 by the year 2010.What are the chances that the Dispatch checked out the veracity of these claims?
Like Canada, where they pay twice as much in taxes in order to face the startling reality that you are twice as likely to heal naturally before seeing a specialist for nearly anything.
This statement is illogical on its face, as well as unlikely and probably unvetted.
Yeah, I want one of those six good old Mideastern terrorists who posed as doctors in the UK [they WERE doctors] so they could plot a bombing on innocent civilians taking my pulse and giving me a stress test. [The terrorists wanted to take Mr.Gustin's pulse and give him a stress test?] England is desperate for doctors, because of the lack of interest in the profession among the Brits. Where did he get this? Is he allowed to say anything as long as it meshes with Dispatch editorial policy?
If the point of health care is to be cheaper for those who use it most, then government health care is your cup of tea. He thinks it should be more expensive the more serious the need???
If the point, however, is to be healed by trained and motivated medical personnel who have a personal, professional stake in your wellness and who likely will see you immediately for emergencies, with or without insurance, and in a few days for scheduled visits, then you may want to think about how we can improve on, not throw out, the system we have. There are large numbers of trained and motivated doctors dedicated to Americans' wellness who support implementation of national health care.
DAVE GUSTIN
Leesburg
I've been going round and round with the brass at the local newsrag about their biased reporting on a number of fronts. Finally, I told them to more or less kiss off (You've seen some of it here already - I'll have a full report on the rest of it at some point).
I'll admit that when I finally quit trying to reason with them, I spoke relatively bluntly, but their response indicated that they didn't print my earlier letters - or even seriously consider their content because they were "rants" and needed more thoughtful civility.
Well, they can say that they disregarded what I had to say because I ranted thoughtlessly and uncivily, but directly below is a letter they recently found calm, thoughtful, and civil enough to publish. You decide whether they were honest with me.
I've put what I found objectionable in red and my inserted comments in blue.
- Uke Man
Don't put government in charge of health care
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Government-run health care? What a concept! Privately run health care? What a concept!
There are so many times I think how great it would be if only the government ran our health-care system, as has been suggested by some people. Sarcasm
Every time I fly, which is about a flight a week, I watch the Transportation Security Administration strip-search some 85-year-old grandma (Yeah, he sees this every week. Have you ever seen ANYONE get strip-searched?) while a cadre of Middle Eastern men (racism/profiling) with 4-foot turbans (Right!! 4-foot turbans) and 3-inch-thick sandals [platform shoes??] pass through security unmolested, and I think to myself, "Man, I wish the government ran the health-care industry." Sarcasm
I sit in a 4-mile parking lot in Chicago called the Dan Ryan Expressway while five lanes of traffic try to pass through a single open lane so eight guys can patch a pothole, and think, "If only the government ran hospitals and told doctors what to do." So, this guy would hire his own private sector pot-hole filler? Yeah, and he could hire a private firm to build the roads he needs when he arrives at whatever destination his weekly flights take him to.
I look at the Veterans Affairs hospitals and think, "All health care should be just like this." I wonder if he thought about that before we invaded Iraq. I wonder if he supported that invasion.
I consider the nearly bankrupt Social Security system, which pays a pittance to our elderly but still is on life support itself, [the actual situation on Social Security has been dealt with here in depth recently - below] and think, "Wow, man, if only Al Gore could put our health care in a lockbox, too! Hot dang!"
I admire our Democrat-controlled Congress with its 11 percent approval rating (now making even President Bush look like a popular overachiever [hyperbole ??]) and I think wistfully, "Why can't the Congress of these United States personally conduct all of my transactions around and concerning my health?"
Like jolly old England, where the average wait for an MRI is somewhere between 10 months and a decade or two. And where 70,000 people last year alone got tired of waiting for (or scared thinking about) a visit to a local hospital and flew to Spain, Morocco, India or elsewhere. This number is expected to be about 210,000 by the year 2010.What are the chances that the Dispatch checked out the veracity of these claims?
Like Canada, where they pay twice as much in taxes in order to face the startling reality that you are twice as likely to heal naturally before seeing a specialist for nearly anything.
This statement is illogical on its face, as well as unlikely and probably unvetted.
Yeah, I want one of those six good old Mideastern terrorists who posed as doctors in the UK [they WERE doctors] so they could plot a bombing on innocent civilians taking my pulse and giving me a stress test. [The terrorists wanted to take Mr.Gustin's pulse and give him a stress test?] England is desperate for doctors, because of the lack of interest in the profession among the Brits. Where did he get this? Is he allowed to say anything as long as it meshes with Dispatch editorial policy?
If the point of health care is to be cheaper for those who use it most, then government health care is your cup of tea. He thinks it should be more expensive the more serious the need???
If the point, however, is to be healed by trained and motivated medical personnel who have a personal, professional stake in your wellness and who likely will see you immediately for emergencies, with or without insurance, and in a few days for scheduled visits, then you may want to think about how we can improve on, not throw out, the system we have. There are large numbers of trained and motivated doctors dedicated to Americans' wellness who support implementation of national health care.
DAVE GUSTIN
Leesburg
1 Comments:
Hi Tom,
Keep it up. The Dispatch deserves every negative you can give them. Sondra
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home