The state of our nation’s health care has been critiqued, debated, and weighing heavily on our collective consciousness. Embarrassed, I must admit, I have not been following the issue as carefully as perhaps an uninsured woman should. My last run in with a TV show, I saw Jon Stewart on the Daily Show trying to decipher some stipulation on page 400-and-something of the new, massive health bill to one of his guests. The sheer size of the document/book made me suspect and I frustratingly turned my attention to painting flowers on the wall.
When things and concepts are so bulky, with so many pieces, they become unmanageable, at least to me. Let’s think about it from a human perspective though. We are humans, aren’t we? (I now ask myself, what exactly does that mean?). For just a second, let’s look at our system in a few basic clumps. Currently, those of us who can afford it, due to whatever evolutionary trait or profitable talent, decide to pay a company (a company I repeat!) to reimburse hospitals and doctors for health care provided to us. Those of us who can’t afford this company sponsored health insurance must, suck it up until we hit the emergency room when all other home remedy and voodoo magic proves unfruitful, only to be charged exorbitant, unaffordable prices.
So what’s better? Having the government take care of us? My uninsured father’s experience with our Veteran’s Hospital, incapable of diagnosing his prostate cancer, tells me this is not necessarily a better idea. Are we left with choosing between a system that lies in the middle of privatized greed and socialized incompetency?
I don’t have these answers, only more questions. And like nearly 50 million other Americans, I am without any health care whatsoever. It doesn’t matter that I work two jobs, exceeding 40hr/wk; apparently it’s not enough. Businesses have a way of sidestepping paying the high prices demanded by insurance companies to insure their employees. Hell, I can’t afford it either. I wonder sometimes, what this will all mean for me as I, like all the rest of us, age and come closer to finding out.
(pictured above, my late, great grandmother. because one day, if i'm lucky, it will be me under that baileys hat.)
Recently on a scientific fishing expedition to report on the state of the ocean’s fisheries, government scientists made a shocking discovery. An unusual number of fish populations, particularly large predators, now contain large amounts of polymers, also known as plastics, within their cartilage and bone mass.
Researchers are cataloging and taking samples before any official reports are released to congressional and international panels. One researcher who refused to be indentified commented about the discovery, “Everything that washes off our streets comes to the sea, then currents carry it here, this place where the wind just stops. Then you have this graveyard of floating plastic, and all the fish beneath eat it. There’s more tiny pieces of plastic in a hundred square mile radius of us then there is plankton--it works it’s way into and up the food chain.”
The area researchers are conducting their survey lies within the North Pacific Gyre, infamous for stranding sail boats due to the lack of winds, and apparently now, all our trash. The area, comprised of approximately ten million square miles, north of the Hawaiian Islands and west of the California coastline, is now becoming a floating garbage dump.
“These findings do have a positive side. The fish seem to be evolving with the plastic and incorporating it into their bodies, their DNA,” One head scientist anonymously claimed. “At this rate, by the year 2020, we speculate cartilage and bone mass in most schooling fish, all shark, and some whales species, will be replaced by stronger, longer lasting materials similar to pvc and plastics of the highest quality. This could be a scientific harvesting ground for a new generation of “bio-plastics”, which man would have never been able to create without the help of nature’s resilience.”
