Enough with "You Lie!"

The situation surrounding Rep. Joe Wilson's "You Lie" outburst needs to be forgotten by the media sooner rather than later. There has been more coverage on this one mundane action than the entirety of Obama's health care initiative.

Where are the articles comparing and contrasting the plans presented by members of Congress? Where is the analysis of Wilson's reasons for his outburst? Is the "Open Market" he is planning to create going to allow illegal aliens to purchase health care insurance? And, if they are purchasing it? WHO CARES? If an illegal is willing to pay for his/her insurance, the same as anyone else, then let them.

Health Insurance: The Medicaid Problem

The issue of health insurance has been one that has plagued our nation for some time now. Some might suggest that national health care, referred to as socialist by some, might be the answer. I once held the dream of national health care close to my heart, yearning to see this small candle burst forth and ignite a revolution in medical treatment for all. Sadly, the current economic downturn has left me with doubts over the wisdom of this move.

I have spent the majority of my working career in a pharmacy and I have personally dealt with a variety of medical and insurance issues. Yes, some insurances might seem like monsters, denying coverage for certain medical conditions or sometimes for illnesses that should never be denied like cancer. These are not the issues that I most worry about for others are already focusing on these and change should soon come. The greater problem that has yet to be touched upon is the catastrophe that is Medicaid.

Medicaid was once a bright idea, designed to provide help to the helpless and prevent those with poor economic means to survive in good health. But now, Medicaid has become an abuser's dream machine, sucking tax dollars dry to fund addicts and drug dealers. I constantly see patients under the "State Assistance" insurance stroll in unperturbed while handing over a plethora of controlled prescriptions. Even this in some cases I can find as okay, but the majority of these patients then have the gall to have the doctor's or just them selves mandate that a brand medication must be dispensed over a generic. In some recent queries, it was estimated that in my store alone, a difference of $1.2 million dollars in tax payer money was spent on the brand over generic choice. There is no true medical need to require brand over generic except in some rare cases, but those are few and far between.

I am not calling for an attack on the individuals filling the medications, but an inquiry into those prescribing these medications, and the bureaucracy that allows astronomical and ridiculous quantities, multiple controlled prescriptions for one patient, and the allowance of single institutions to hand out these medications like a candy store. If every store in my chain had even 50% of the difference in just brand vs generic issues - disregarding all the other atrocities- it would save around $835 million dollars a year. This is certainly a drop in the bucket in regards to other debts we have, but my chain is one of the small ones; imagine what difference is seen at the large stores....

Disgust at the "Real" McCain and Palin

Over the last few days, a common thread has begun to shine through in the campaign trail for the McCain camp; they view any Americans that support Obama as unpatriotic. In a news story posted on Fox News, a McCain adviser referred to McCain's chances of victory in Virginia as very good because the Republican party had a great cache of support in the "Real" Virginia.

What is the "Real" Virginia some may ask? To the Republicans, it is "in the downstate areas far removed in distance and political philosophy from the more liberal areas of the north" said the McCain adviser. When did being a liberal equate anti-American? Being a liberal is not a single-defining characteristic that encompasses an individual's life, but a mere portion of a multi-faceted thinker.
They are not restrained by the constraints of a conservative mindset nor the unencumbered openness seen in the "hippies" of the past. A true liberal, as seen in Barack Obama, is a man that is open to all ideas and will hear out any new thought as long as it is grounded in reason and evidence.

In an equally and yet worse remark posted in a CNN article, VP nominee Palin stated that "we believe that the best of America is in the small towns that we get to visit, and in the wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation." So does that mean that the educated masses in big cities are all unpatriotic because they think for themselves? Or rather, does it basically mean that they believe in the old ideal of you are either with us or against us?

Either way, these statements and thoughts being expressed by the Republican party are frightening in their extremist undertone and seem designed to create a divide between the political parties. These statements taken with the videos of Palin-McCain inspired mobs leave an apprehensive, queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. The Republican party wishes to garner their support from those lacking the knowledge to form opinions of their own.