Tired of this healthcare debate- or what I would do

[me&thegals]

Great ideas, ETR! I'm not sure about the practicality of #9, but overall I thought they were great ideas. Also, it's refreshing to have a conversation about what TO DO rather than what NOT to do.

I agree with what is being said about food, too. Of course, BD or anyone with children currently at home have to think about saving time where possible. I think we're talking about an entire culture in America of working long hours, cramming in lots of extracurricular activities and then trying to get a decent meal for the family at the end of a long day. Not sure how you change an entire culture...

 

[mrs.puff]

Okay so we just got tossed into the healthcare debate this past week by accident. DH ended up with a large gash about an inch long clear through his lip and up into his mustache, not to mention his dentures broken (long story). We have no health insurance.
1) He is self employed and I am a substitute teacher. We make less than $10,000 a year, net income.
2) He got a severe arm injury several years ago and is unable to do his normal trade (carpentry) but was denied disability.
3) He is a veteran
4) Income wise, we are eligible for state medicaid. Or is it medicare? The one that is not for seniors.

So while he was getting sewn up in the emergency room, I made some phone calls. State medicaid will not cover the injury because he did not get treated in the ONE hospital in the WHOLE STATE you have to go to (if you don't live in Des Moines) which is THREE HOURS from our home. The VA will not cover him because he has not been seen by a VA doctor in 24 months and the injury was not "life threatening". I might mention that he is a bardic poet and that is his livelihood, so in his mind a mouth injury is life-threatening, or at least life -altering. So here's my beef--- The VA won't cover an emergency simply b/c he hasn't been to a VA doctor in a couple years? Why should we be forced to go to the doctor if it is not necessary? Isn't that a waste of money for the government??? Why should he have to drive 80 miles to Des Moines with a mangled face to the large VA hospital, when there's a VA facility 20 miles from our house and less than a mile from the emergency room we went to?

So basically we are waiting for the bill, and hoping that our county "general assistance" office gives us some assistance.

I am all for public healthcare, but lets make it make sense. I shouldn't have to jump through a bunch of ridiculous hoops just for a tentanus shot and five stitches. grrrr.

 

[me&thegals]

Geez--Nothing like being thrown into the system to see all its glitches!! I really hope things work out well for you both. Good luck!

me&thegals

 

[reinbeau]

I don't agree. I have been cooking for a LONG time. I can make something healthy faster than I could bake a cheap pot pie, cook a batch of Kraft Mac & Cheese or Hamburger helper....things we uses to live on as kids.

Again, Wifezilla, I agree with you - but it isn't fast food. Two different kinds of 'fast food', if you will. But what you're talking about is not what the general public considers fast food. It just isn't.

Of course, if you are expecting everything to be microwaved in less than 2 minutes...then you may have a case. But even ramen noodles take a while to get the water boiling. I can make an omelet in the same amount of time.

I don't have a case, but those who do expect everything to be ready in two minutes are what we're talking about. People don't cook anymore, because they don't have to, it all comes out of a package.

 

[patandchickens]

I wonder what would happen if a big fat tax were slapped onto prepared foods (things in their natural, no-more-than-traditionally-processed state would be exempt, like potatoes vs Tater Tots, or flour vs Wonderbread).

I am not in general in favor of punitive manipulative taxes to try to herd people in a particular desired direction... and I do not know for sure whether I'd even be in favor of THIS if it were really proposed in Congress, which of course it never ever not in a million years would be...

...but, it makes one wonder.


Pat

 

[reinbeau]

It's tempting but I don't want to give them yet another revenue stream based on something we want stopped - ala the tobacco tax - because when it does finally diminish, where does the money come from then? I'd far rather it be done via education. The problem is the system is so geared to value added profits, we need the lamestream media to help us but corporate buddies will get in the way....

 

[patandchickens]

The problem is the system is so geared to value added profits, we need the lamestream media to help us but corporate buddies will get in the way....

I agree entirely. (Look, look, everyone, I am agreeing with Ann! LOL)

There is just waaaay too much money being made off the way things are, and waaaaay too little capacity to make the same sort of money off simpler healthier foods. I honestly don't see how *serious, sweeping* change could occur, barring the random drift over time of national eating fads (which of course then drift right back in a few more years).

It would be easy in a non free market, not-so-democratic country -- whoever's in power could just say by fiat "let there be cabbages and no Big Macs" and there would be. Freedom to choose definitely has its down side as well. (Clarification: I *am* pro freedom )

Pat

 

[ORChick]

"People don't cook anymore, because they don't have to, it all comes out of a package."

This is hitting home for me right at the moment, again. My DH had thyroid cancer (among other things) 2 years ago. Thyroid was removed, and he needed to have radioactive iodine treatment. Prior to the treatment he had to go on a low iodine diet - the idea being that thyroid cells suck up iodine; if starved of it for awhile any cancer cells left in his body would take up the radioactive iodine more readily, and kill themselves. He is scheduled to have a follow up scan in a couple of weeks, and needs to be on the diet again.
The point is: this diet doesn't restrict a lot, but what it does restrict is found in just about anything ready made, pre-prepared. Restaurant food is out because iodized salt is out, and there is no way to tell what kind of salt is used. Same for anything out of a box from the supermarket. Even the natural foods aisle - there the salt is sea salt, but that is also out, as is anything else harvested from the ocean.
This is actually not a problem for me (the cook) because I cook mostly from scratch anyway, and don't use iodized salt even in normal times. The other restrictions are minor - no dairy, no egg yolks, no soy, and a few other things. The most difficult part, for a short term diet, is no butter. The hardest part for my DH is that he can't have commercially produced sausage (he's German!), and can't go out to eat in restaurants.
I did a lot of research into this diet 2 years ago, and was amazed to find that most people commenting on forums were totally at a loss as to how to accomplish it. They didn't know how to cook; they didn't have time to either do the appropriate shopping, or figure out how to put the ingredients together properly; it was too expensive; nothing that they liked came in a form that they were allowed to eat.
Now, granted, I am retired and have time to muck about in the kitchen to my heart's content. But even when I was working I cooked mostly from scratch. I made time to occasionally make bread, and could have done so more often had this episode in our lives happened during that time. At worst I would have borrowed or rented a bread machine.
Not knowing how to cook should be no excuse. If one can read, or watch a video one should be able to cook. Plenty of people in this world do a good job at it even without being able to read. And buying basics, and in season, is not necessarily more expensive.
The multitudes of people who buy into the advertizing telling them that the stuff from factories is better, faster, easier, healthier(!), are being done a great disservice, IMO - and an even greater one is being done to the generations to follow.

 

[patandchickens]

Not knowing how to cook should be no excuse. If one can read, or watch a video one should be able to cook. Plenty of people in this world do a good job at it even without being able to read. And buying basics, and in season, is not necessarily more expensive.

IMO the "nobody cooks anymore" problem has three roughly equal-sized causes: a) a majority people under the age of, I dunno, 30 or so did not grow up in households where much cooking was being done and thus they lack basic reference experiences, without which it is harder to learn (and to *believe* you can learn); b) the media-hyped culture of "live like you're rich" is inherently biased against normal daily home cooking, making it seem like restaurant menus are a crucial part of living well (and by well I mean, 'minimally acceptably'); and c) cooking has acquired this sort of "madonna-whore" atmosphere where all people think of is either fancy preparations with expensive ingredients, or poverty rice and beans that nobody wants to descend to.

People have just, for a good while now, not WANTED to cook, at least not prosaic things like breakfasts and potroasts. It's so un-liberated, so barefoot-and-in-the-kitchen.

Possibly the current economy will support a long-term groundswell of normal cooking becoming trendier. It would be nice. I am not holding my breath but you never know!

Pat

 

[big brown horse]

Right on ORChick! When I worked 40 plus hours per week plus had "home work" to finish up I still cooked 3 meals a day. My daughter never ate a school lunch until she reached the age of 11, and then she switched back, now she makes her own.

I relied on my crock pot about 75% of the time for dinners which also provided lunches as leftovers. Breakfast was easy IMO. I usually made a sprouted wheat toast and cheese sandwhich or hard boiled eggs for everyone to take on the go. The hardest part was doing the dishes, but as my daughter got older, that issue went away. It can be done with minimal planning. My family gets just about the same 15 or so recipes over and over unless it is a special occasion. They are just happy to smell home made food cooking on the stove or in the oven or crock pot.

(Some of the most nutritious veggies are the most inexpensive too.)



Mrs.Puff, I am so sorry, believe me I feel your pain. I hope your husband gets better!! (Dentures cost a fortune too!!)