MEandering

I do not, in general, go in for product endorsements, paid or otherwise. This, for the record, is a product endorsement and it is one that I have not been paid to make.

The Gabston-Howell's online presence is hosted by Bluehost and has been for a few years now. After we decided that we needed the stability of a paid service, we started shopping for a company that would meet our needs. We signed up with Bluehost and have never regretted it.

For me, the best thing about dealing with them is the fact that I normally don't need to deal with them. I pay for a service, I get a service. The good job that Bluehost does is something I take for granted. Although this is how it should be, it is rare that this is what actually exists.

The other day, we had a rare interruption in service. We turned on the tap but no water flowed. Our pages did not display when the URLs were typed into the address bar. Bluehost took too long to fix it.

The thing that made our experience with Bluehost different from our experiences with other companies was that, throughout, it was possible to call and talk to a person. Nobody denied responsibility or acted like we were being unreasonable to expect service. We were not forced to prove that we really could spell our own names before the company admitted that there was a problem.

The reason for the interruption was that Bluehost had overlooked minor mistakes while providing a free upgrade to our plan (free upgrades have been frequent, unrequested and always impressive throughout our time with the company) and had not noticed until we called. Even though the interruption was as a result of trying to improve service, they did not attempt to excuse the problem.

They recognized that they had messed up, told us they would fix it, then they fixed it. I am back to being mostly unaware that Bluehost exists. This is as I think it should be.

Please see http://mattheaton.com/ , Mr. Bluehost's blog. Pay special attention to his January 12, 2008 post. The man, and therefore the man's business, clearly understands that when you turn on the tap, the water should flow and that when this does not happen, the proper response is to correct the problem and render an apology.

(Drum roll please) If you are considering a paid hosting service, please consider Bluehost.

Envy is silly and unproductive but sometimes it sneaks up on me. My usual attitude about somebody else having something that I want is to figure out how to get it and decide whether the cost is something that I am willing to pay.

Over the years, this cost/benefit analysis has often led to the conclusion that, although I could have whatever it was I was drooling over, I did not want it enough to be willing to give up something else that I already had or had been working toward. Having a family of any size--let alone one the size of my own--very often means that I do not get to have the latest, greatest new thing on the market. That is not said out of regret, far from it. In a Silas Marner-like fashion, I count my gold and feel complete. Other people may have their treasures, but my own treasure--my children and spouse--are riches enough for me.

Yesterday morning, I stumbled. I felt near-overwhelming envy. Although it lasted for only a moment or two, it was real and definite. For whole, precious seconds I felt like throwing myself to the floor, kicking and screaming and demanding my share of what someone else has.

If the emotion had risen to the level of rational thought, it would have been expressed in the words: It's not fair!

I got over it quickly. I counted my gold and realized, yet again, how great is my own wealth.

The catalyst for my momentary fall from grace? My oldest daughter--the one who first taught me that the joy of parenthood, for me, is so great that any claims of 'sacrificing for my children's sake' is mendacious--sent me a text message.

Dr. Daughter is all grown up now. She has made very different choices in life. As a rule, her accomplishments are something that I am smugly proud of. My 'child' has grown up into a fantastic person. When I look at her, at how far she has traveled, at who she made herself become, I feel a physical surge of parental pride. She is herself and complete, but she is a piece of my soul that stands outside of me, that I can look at and love and admire without feeling hedonistic.

Her different life choices have led to different experiences that--usually--do not inspire envy. I like my life. The cost of having the life that I have is not having the life that she has. I am very much okay with that. Usually.

Just for a moment, though, I turned green with envy over something that my child has earned that I have not. She could afford this week what I probably will not be able to afford for myself for years. She revealed, in her text message, that she spent fifteen hours on herself.

Fifteen hours.

I know that I am something of a contrarian. I have the bad habit of doubting popular opinion and this habit is not always limited by whether or not popular opinion is based on fact. My first instinct is to doubt--irregardless of subject--, when I hear the words, or even the strong implication of the words, "Everyone knows."

I have known, for most of my life, that a national single-payer health care model would be a bad thing for the United States. Or rather, I have known that 'everyone' knows this. Genetically and environmentally prone to being contrary, I have never actually believed it, but never bothered to do enough research to satisfy myself that my opinion did not merely represent another instance of my own contrary nature.

I recently decided to find out what it is that "everyone knows" on this subject and whether they know what they "know".

Asking people what they thought of the government taking over the financial burden of paying for everyone's health care, I got the expected answer. My friends--the people most us mean when we say "everyone"--mostly believe it would be a bad idea. (The exception to the 'mostly' were, by and large, those who grew to maturity in another country that does have national health care. )

Everyone knows that we cannot afford national, single-payer health care. Everyone's taxes would increase, I was told, to pay to cover the uninsured. A subset of my "everyone" believes that it might be financially feasible to have national health care if we could manage to send all the illegal immigrants away, because their care is a huge factor in the nation's health care expense. Another subset believes it would be too expensive because the government is so incompetent that any health care plan overseen by them would actually increase the expense of medical care and lead to things like taxpayer dollars paying $100 for an aspirin.

Interestingly enough, of the members of my "everyone" that I talked to, some of the "illegal immigrants drive up costs" people are legal immigrants and most of the "incompetent government would drive up costs" people are Los Angeles County employees.

This unscientific research,--conducted by asking my friends, "What do you think of the idea of national health care?" and nodding a lot to encourage them to give me the full benefit of their wisdom on the subject, --convinced me that "everyone" does indeed know that we cannot afford single-payer national heath care.

It turns out that my "everyone" does not know quite as much as they think they do.

• FACT: The vast majority of people lacking health insurance in the United States were born in the United States.
• FACT: A large percentage of those lacking health insurance are employed full time.
• FACT: Many of the people who have health insurance lack actual access to care because they are under-insured and cannot afford deductibles and co-pays required by their insurance provider.
• FACT: Many people who are fully insured currently will lack access if they experience a serious illness when they lose insurance coverage because of a job loss or are dropped by their insurance provider.
• FACT: The U.S. government already pays for much of the health care in the nation. With programs to cover some elderly and/or disabled adults, some children and some impoverished U.S. residents and with laws mandating emergency room treatment, We-the-People already are the single largest health insurance provider in the nation, providing coverage--back in 2004--for approximately 45% of the nation's health care costs.
• FACT: Although the U.S. is one of the few nations in the world that does not guarantee health care for everyone, counting only U.S. government expenditures, this nation is among the top 10 nations in the world in terms of per capita health care spending.
• FACT: Once we add the cost borne by employers, individuals and other non-government health care funding to the cost borne by the government, We-the-people pay more per capita than any nation in the world for health care, but--according to the World Health Organization--the care we get ranks 37th in overall performance and 72nd in overall level of health among the 191 nations compared.

We-the-people seem pretty convinced nowadays that we have to make certain that everyone has access to health care, but "everyone" seems convinced that the way to provide that access is by forcing everyone who can afford it to buy private health insurance and by paying for/helping to pay for private health insurance for those who cannot afford it.

Contrary me looked at a sample of the facts available and decided that the cheapest, most efficient way to go is single-payer. We-the-people have a responsibility to each other to guarantee heath care and the cheapest, most reliable way to do that is NOT to pay a health insurance company to pay a health care provider. We tried that already and the result is paying more and getting less for our money.

It is clear to me that we cannot afford not to have a single-payer, national health care plan.

+++++++++++++++++++

JAMA. 2003;289:1165.
It is only partially true to say that the United States does not currently have a national health care system. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) estimated the 1999 government share of total US health spending as 45.2% ($548 billion).¹ This estimate includes funding for Medicare, Medicaid, workers' compensation, the Department of Veterans Affairs, public hospitals, and government public health activities. Thus, public funds directly pay for the health care of many people in the United States. Read the entire JAMA article.

One out of six Americans under age sixty-five lacks health insurance, a situation that imposes sizable hidden costs upon society. The poorer health and shorter lives of those without coverage account for most of these costs. Other impacts are manifested by Medicare and disability support payments, demands on the public health infrastructure, and losses of local health service capacity. We conclude that the estimated value of health forgone each year because of uninsurance ($65-$130 billion) constitutes a lower-bound estimate of economic losses resulting from the present level of uninsurance nationally. Read the entire Project Hope article.

Wikipedia article with links to sources.

Data below from US Census Bureau, August 2007 release.

The number of people without health insurance coverage rose from 44.8 million (15.3 percent) in 2005 to 47 million (15.8 percent) in 2006.

• The number of uninsured children increased from 8 million (10.9 percent)
  in 2005 to 8.7 million (11.7 percent) in 2006.

Race and Hispanic Origin (Race data
refer to those reporting a single race only)

• The number of uninsured, as well as the rate without health insurance,
  remained statistically unchanged in 2006 for non-Hispanic whites (at 21.2
  million or 10.8 percent). For blacks, the number and percentage increased,
  from 7 million in 2005 to 7.6 million and from 19 percent in 2005 to 20.5
  percent. The number of uninsured Asians remained statistically unchanged,
  at 2 million in 2006, while their uninsured rate declined to 15.5 percent
  in 2006, from 17.2 percent in 2005.
  
  
  
  
• The number and percentage of uninsured Hispanics increased from 14 million
  (32.3 percent) in 2005 to 15.3 million (34.1 percent).
  
  
  
  
• Based on a three-year average (2004-2006), 31.4 percent of people who
  reported American Indian and Alaska Native as their race were without coverage.
  The three-year average for Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders
  was 21.7 percent.

Nativity

• Between 2005 and 2006, the number of U.S.-born residents who were uninsured
  increased from 33 million to 34.4 million, and their uninsured rate increased
  from 12.8 percent in 2005 to 13.2 percent. The number of foreign-born who
  were uninsured rose from 11.8 million in 2005 to 12.6 million, and their
  rate was statistically unchanged at 33.8 percent in 2006.

Regions

• The Midwest had the lowest uninsured rate in 2006, at 11.4 percent, followed
  by the Northeast (12.3 percent), the West (17.9 percent) and the South (19
  percent). The Northeast and South experienced increases in their uninsured
  rates — their 2005 rates were 11.7 percent and 18 percent, respectively.

States

• Rates for 2004-2006 using a three-year average show that Texas (24.1
  percent) had the highest percentage of uninsured. The rates for Minnesota,
  Hawaii, Iowa, Wisconsin and Maine were lower than the rates of the other
  45 states and the District of Columbia. The rates for these five states
  were not statistically different from one another.
  
  
  
  
• Fifteen states had an uninsured rate that was statistically higher than
  the national rate of 15.3 percent, while 29 states and the District of Columbia
  had rates statistically lower than the U.S. average. Six states had rates
  that were not statistically different from the national average.