This is the guy that’s gong to be heading Medicare and Medicaid. We’re doomed and that’s just guessing a look at from outside. This is definitely a rant. I’m sure you missed them (Ha.)
Dr. Oz told members of the National Governors’ Association in 2013 that uninsured Americans “don’t have the right to health,” but should be given “a way of crawling back out of the abyss of darkness of fear over not having the health they need.” WHAT. People in the effing UNITED STATES OF AMERICA don’t have the right to health? You shouldn’t save people from a plane crash, or a sinking boat, because if any single one uninsured person doesn’t have the right to health, then don’t bother with any of them because you don’t know who that one person is. Or do you go against the possibility of there being one person and actually try to save them? What about automobile wrecks, train wrecks, any sort of natural disaster? What about people at a music festival that get shot down by some psychotic guy with no known reason of why he did it – should they be helped if you don’t know if they have health insurance?
Okay I may be exaggerating, although not as much as it may seem because we just don’t have that sort of information about “bad” events happening. We don’t even have that sort of information. The numbers fluctuate because some people gain insurance, but others lose it. This is near and dear to me because I’ve been there! I’ve been without health insurance and burned through my retirement just to live after I got laid off! I was in the damn hospital, am still laid off, unemployment has run out, but I was lucky because my husband could add me to his insurance. VERY DAMN LUCKY. But what if I hadn’t been? What about if you, or someone you know, or a friend’s family member, lost their insurance. Does that now mean they have to crawl through the darkness of fear?
I CANNOT BELIEVE this guy’s BULLSH*T. He’s no more a doctor than I’m a Olympic level gymnast! He is a “celebrity heart surgeon turned talk show host and lifestyle guru”. Lawd almighty, if this was who I would have had for a procedure, I would have run screaming from the hospital and found someone else. Celebrity. Heart. Surgeon. Talk. Show. Host. (No wonder the Tangerine Palpatine gets along with him so well.) Two con men. What’s wrong with this picture??!!
Oh wait. The Mango Messiah chose him for his cabinet. He’s fitting right in with the Billionaire Boys Club and the insane people who want to leak our state secrets to our enemies and the asswipe who has sexual assault in his background. Sounds about right, huh? Now I’m worried about the people I know who are on Medicare and Medicaid. How much are they going to lose?
Rant end.
Ms. Fenyx,
What happened to Mr. Miciak (my apologies to him for likely misspelling his name)? He seemed to have stopped writing when you started. Did he get swapped out for you?
I can answer that for you. In a word, NO. However you’d probably like more information so here goes. This site has been around for quite a few years now, for as a branch of Daily Sound & Fury (to provide original content, mostly from Ursula) for that site and then when DSF was sold a series of events led to Ursula eventually gaining control and ownership of PZ. Since then a small collection of writers have been featured on this site. Some have come and gone for whatever reason. Choosing to write elsewhere. In the case of at least one passing away. Some have just gotten burnt out, or had personal matters force them to step away, at least for a while. (Happened to me for a couple of months last summer) Some, (Jason for example) have left for a while and come back. I’m not in touch with him so I can’t say why he’s mostly disappeared recently. Murfster? He explained why he was stepping back for a while. I miss him and bet you do too and hope he’ll come back.
Ursula and I became pals years ago via Daily Kos and once this became truly her baby I migrated over here and sometimes wrote pieces under the old “Community” tab. She’s spent years (literally) coaching me. I got a rep (deservedly it pains me to admit) on DK for being long-winded and writing complicated “diaries.” A well-known and admired person could do that over there but for someone like me despite some pieces that went high up on the ‘rec list’ most of my stuff dropped off the front page in a day or less.
At one point Jason, who’d been a regular daily contributor stopped posting here on PZ and we were down to just Ursula and Murfster as feature writers so I tried to step up and start posting articles every day. We need multiple voices. Different people with slightly different interests, viewpoints and just as importantly style of communication because we have a diverse set of readers. I’m sure there are people who read PZ who think sometimes “I could have written that”, or “I could do a better job talking about/explaining that” or something along those lines. Most don’t take the plunge but if you look at some of our regular commentors we clearly have people who could be feature writers if they chose to be. Perhaps not posting their own articles every day, but maybe two or so a week.
Yet people don’t. Ideally we’d have at least five or six regular contributors. That way any one or two could go a day without writing and we’d still have at least ten or twelve new articles posted. Instead, we have had three or four and for years.
As for Susan, she wrote something that caught my eye in a comment about having once been a writer but that was long in her past. So I got in touch with her and encouraged her to give writing a try again. I hope I’m not betraying her confidence in saying she was hesitant at first. Putting yourself out there, and risking criticism or even derision is what keeps most people from trying things be it writing or leading projects at work. Or some volunteer group. You know what I’m talking about.
Jason was back and his articles were usually well received. My idea to try and encourage Susan to join our ranks of feature writers had nothing to do with Jason. I just believed (and still do) this site would be better off with five or six feature writers. At least. Like I said, people leave (at least temporarily) for various reasons. I have talked with Ursula over the years about recruiting more writers but she frankly doesn’t have the time. In addition to running the site she’s the writer who brings in the most site traffic and there are only 24 hours in a day. I’ve contacted others, including some folks from back on Kos who were like me in the hopes that seeing their work quickly drop off the front page might decide instead of getting lost in the shuffle they’d rather be a big fish in a small pond.
Only a couple even responded and in neither case did it lead to them coming to be contributors to this site. However Susan had a couple of ideas and I enouraged her to draft something and email it to me. She did, and we did a bit of back and forth and Ursula agreed with me it was worth putting up some of her work to see if people like it.
Well, it turns out some folks do. Hell, Susan is beating the pants of lil ole me these days. Sometimes her work gets thousands of views – upwards of four or five thousand in fact and most comments are positive. So she’s a welcome addition to be sure but recruiting her had NOTHING to do with Jason. It was simply about a long-held goal of adding more writers to the site. Whatever is going on with Jason I for one hope he’s back and posting articles again soon. And I also hope Murfster gets back in the saddle. I was glad to see Duratti post again earlier. I’ve missed his work as well and I’m certain I’m not the only one. Again, I don’t know the reasons behind his comings and goings as we don’t communicate with each other except in comments on the site.
I hope this explains things to you and others. And if anyone would like to take a crack at posting their own articles, even if not on a daily basis by all means say so. As site moderator I scan comments but admittedly don’t read them all closely. But if anyone wants to write for PZ please reach out. As I said, from comments I KNOW some of our readers could gain an audience if they cared to make the committment to regular writing and posting.
For now, let’s just hope we see Jason back soon. And Susan keeps doing what she’s doing.
Only a little embarrassment here. But I did try, and I did get on, and I have a couple commenters who I wish would get their feet wet and try an article or two with us. It’s so incredibly worth it. I am having a blast doing something I once loved to do, and am loving again. We need you folks. Please at least keep commenting and supporting us. You’re worth it and so are we.
Jason is on hiatus at the moment. There’s no way I could “replace” him 🙂
Susan…God knows what we’re in for. I get every shot I can for everything before this Quack and tweedle Kennedy dee take over. I’m also lucky because, in boot camp, we were vaccinated for things that don’t exist here in the states. Visit your own MD daily…you. Stretch…lift light weights occasionally, get outside and walk. If any of those are beyond your physical capabilities, improvise. I walk two to three miles a day. It’s my gym, my therapist, my time in nature, and a sanctuary from all this madness. By the way, Biden needs to get off his derriere and give the FDA approval to distribute the ALREADY developed avian flu vaccine. If he doesn’t, the brain worm will stop it from reaching the public, and many people will die. It’s a high price to pay when it can be avoided. Of course, the Maga crowd will still decide to stay walking petri dishes so it can mutate, as flu viruses are known to do. If you need a fun diversion, pull up the song Susan by the Buckinghams…they had some hits in the 60s.
Grrrrr I had this whole long reply already typed out and did something stupid and now it’s vanished. But anyhow, yea, I get every possible booster I can, except I have to wait on things right now because I have pneumonia and it Pisses. Me. Off. I also walk and it does the same for me as it does for you – many things in one. My mom and I promised we’d walk. She also has me leaving all my concerns in the apartment and just think about what I’m seeing and hearing outside. That’s been a huge help too, to have a mini vacation away from all my worries. And thanks for the reminder about stretching! I have a 3 pound weight I’ve been using for my wrists after an injury that put me in the hospital for a week last year (ugh) I wish there was a way for contact Joe directly and say GET THIS DONE BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE. Because you *know* it won’t get approved otherwise. “Walking petri dishes” made me both giggle and nod my head in agreement. I’ll look for that song 🙂 Apologies for all the jumping around from subject to subject. And you are welcome to email me directly if you wish.
Scott – please email me.
Susan,,I can go you one better. I got married 5months a head of schedule. I’d had two UTIs and bronchitis,, and I had no insurance.
Ha, yes indeed you can 🙂 I’ve been married for 9.5 years now and my being laid off was completely out of the blue, when our team had been told just A WEEK EARLIER how important we were. I’m still trying to deal with that after 17 years with the company. But we didn’t think of calling it a catastrophic life event so I was without for months. I’m very fortunate now. The doc wanted me to go into the hospital. We can’t afford it. If it gets worse I’ll go to an urgent care but nothing higher. But you still did me one better 🙂 🙂 🙂