Uncle Sam to Decide Your Child’s Value for Medical Treatment

When I was 4 years old, I was sitting in my grandmother’s lap on the passenger side of the front seat.  Life was good.  My hand was wrapped around the window frame.  We’d just finished Friday grocery shopping and were heading to lunch.  Excited, I held onto the window frame of my aunt’s car doo, eager to eat.  We did not go out often. My grandmother pulled the door, hefting it, slamming the door shut.  Screams!  Major Screams. 1/3 of my thumb was severed.  My aunt and my grandmother rushed me, screaming at the top of my lungs to the pediatrician’s office.  My pediatrician snipped off the dangling 1/3 of my finger, popped it in an ice cup and sent us to the emergency room. 

Still screaming, I was handed to a  young intern and taken to surgery. A young intern re-attached my thumb.  He was not sure the fingernail would grow back.  My mom had to soak and scrape the nail bed nightly.  It did grow back.  Even with a thumb print, today you cannot see where it was severed.  This young intern went on to become a world class limb attachment surgeon. 

Today I wonder if under Obama’s Health Care plan my children or their children receive the same care I got?

A friend of my delivered a baby whose stomach and organs were pushed up into the lung area.  The symptoms were flagged by an experienced nurse, the problem quickly identified and immediate surgery put everything back where it belong.  Timely intervention saved her life.  She is a normal, regular run and fun little girl today.

My mom was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She needed surgery within weeks.  During the pre-surgery testing, a rare separate cancer was discovered in early stages. They were able to quickly do the brain surgery and a month later remove the cancer.  She was 64 years old, earning slightly higher than minimum wage, matching her employer for insurance. No medicaid or Medicare for financial help. In case you are wondering, she raised two children on that type of salary without government assistance. 

A friend of mine’s husband had a heart attack while unemployed.  The hospital agreed to write off the costs.

The state of Tennessee has a program for the “uninsurable” – an exploding, fraud-filled program whose prices have staggered.  I knew people on that program who did not have to pay for doctor visits, treatment, medications or surgery.  They owned businesses.  Some had good incomes.

I like the quality of my health care.  I like the choices I have.  Yes, I admit it.  I am disturbed that they want to destroy a health care system that brings people from around the world because of the quality of medical treatment offered.  Yes, I also know there are readers out there who think Cuba has better care than we do.  I really don’t know of many people eager to go to Cuba for quality health care, but if that’s where you want to go, fine. I still say the United States has the best health care. I find it disturbing that people are trying to fix the part of health care that is not the problem.

What is even more disturbing is government run-health care weighing my treatment by considering “what’s good for the community than for and individual,” said Dr. Exekiel Emanuel, White House Health Policy Adviser.   Author Scott Lazarowitz in his article “ObamaCare and the Value of Human Life, counters, “This implies that if an individual is not useful to the community, he has less value as an individual and may not be a worthy as others for medical treatment.” 

Do you really want someone besides God determining your value, someone else to tell you to throw in the towel – or rather grab the towel away from you before you make a decision to stop fighting for your right to live? There is a reason now why you have to sign a legal document giving someone that right – most of use have few people we trust to make that decision for us – much less a government appointed “advocate.”

ObamaCare smells when you look at the behavior of the Senators supporting the Legislation.

Florida (D) Representative Alan Grayson asked Attorney General Eric Holder to send a blogger who criticized him to jail – that’s – Go directly to jail – do not file a complaint, do not go to trial befor a jury – just go to jail. People like him are going to decide if my mama, my boys, or I have value?

It sounds so “high school” to have someone judge your ability to give to society in order to determine whether you “earn” the really good treatment.  Who is going to determine what adds value to a community? Money? Belief System? Skin Color? Political Beliefs?

Do you really want a bunch of stab-you-in the back, send-you-to-jail-for-disagreeing-with-me people determining whether you contribute value to society?

When a government starts playing God, while taking God out of the public square, the public school house, and public history lessons, I would think their definition of value would be different than mine.

As  a matter of fact, their values seem vastly different than mine – I do not make decisions that affect millions under the cover of darkness.  I do not take money for favors.  I do not turn off the phone so I cannot hear the people I am responsible for. I do not blatantly lie.  I read all documents before I sign my name because I am ultimately responsible.  I pay my taxes. If I hold my hand over a bible, place my hand over my heart, and pledge to uphold the Constitution, I would.  Oh, wait – I do not even need to play my hand over a bible, my hand over my heart – and I don’t even have to pledge it.  I live it.

Yes, their values are vastly different that mine.  I guess a bonus to ObamaCare is that I will not even have to pay to go to a lawyer to give permission for the government appointed advocate to make that decision.  The government will trump family and law. Amazing, isn’t it. Who do you trust to determine whether you have enough value to live?

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A Congress’s Betrayal of the People

“We’ve got to pass health care now.  People are dying right now,” is what I heard Senator Harry Reid say before Christmas last week. Reid’s comment was not quite forthright. This bill will not help people “dying right now” – It does not take effect for a few years. Hence, the urgency was subterfuge – an artifice or expedient used to evade a rule, escape consequences, hide something.

For the last month, Congress has met under the cover of darkness, voting in the early a.m. hours deep in the weekends to push this reform forward.  On weekends, apparently, you do not have to answer your phones, so phone calls went unanswered from the people they represent. They shut the people’s voices down in this stealth attack.

These not-so- illustrious representatives have broken rules to stop the reading of the bill, shorten debate and keep the bill behind closed doors.  It boggles my mind that these “representatives” do not read the bills – they boast about not reading the bills.  If I did not read the essays I used to grade, I would be fired.  What kind of people are they to not read a bill that will change my life expectancy and take money out of my pocket? Capricious! Reckless! Unthinkable in real world business.  Maybe I would not read the small print in contracts either if I were irresponsible and somebody else was paying the bill – but then I would be foolish, inconsiderate, and immoral to act on wrong principles instead of right.

While the D.C. Federal government closed on a Monday morning due to harsh winter conditions, the Senate managed get to the Capitol, open it, and vote.  You know something is fishy when someone decides to work on a snow day! I could see this determination if we were in war, but we are not-or at least that is what our president says.  Why our president was not even notified of a foiled terrorist attack on one of our planes for three hours – is health care more important than our national security?  Is not that the only job specifically define for our representatives in the Constitution?

These representatives gave the little people an additional back-handed slap by voting on Weekends.  Do you realize that when they were meeting and voting on Saturdays, they did not have to answer their phones – because it was a weekend?

Deals in the dark smell – liars, cheats, thieves, and sell-outs deal in the dark – that is the modus operandi people use to shield you from seeing the truth. Jesus was betrayed and arrested under the cover of darkness – sold out by one within the inner circle – sold out for gold coins.

Which is what our Congress has done to us.  Just as surely as Judas betrayed Jesus, so did our Congressmen betray the people of this country. I would think buying votes was illegal – but vote-buying is splashed all over the front of the newspapers.  I guess Congress thinks the laws are only for people like me – like this insurance deal will be for people like me, while they get premium-Congress only policies.

Even more insidious than cutting deals in the dark of night behind closed doors is that the money my family earns, tithes from, thanks God for will be used to fund abortions – it will be required that each person contribute to abortion coverage in this new insurance deal they are cutting in these back rooms under the cover of darkness..  Lila Terhune in her book, Cross Pollination points out that every great move of God is preceded by the killing of children.  Granted, I want God to move, but I do not want the blood of unborn children on my hands from money taken out of my pocket and handed to my government.  Do you realize that most abortions are of the first born child? And my government wants me to pay for that?  I do not think so! Can I be a conscientious objector?

This is not a political blog – it is a blog about a simple mom raising American sons to be Godly young men worthy of the sacrifice that our ancestors and your ancestors made to live in this country – and as such, this discussion is about them. I want my sons raised in the free American where I was raised where through sheer work ethic and determination you can make a life better for your self, where you have the best medical care available in the world, and where you have the choice to lift up your fellow man-not a government-mandated choice, but a personal choice.

Last week, I watched the Jimmy Stuart movie, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  I recommend watching it.  It’s a lesson of our government at a time where when our representatives were held accountable for noble and ignoble actions.

Last week, Congress played foully with the American people while their attention was turned to their families, their faith, and the hustle and bustle of Christmas. Maybe there is a war going on and that is why they worked on Christmas Eve – Sadly, this war is against their own people.

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♥ Obama is Not My Kids’ Mama

Children are so impressionable.  It doesn’t take much appeal to get them on board for a project.  Last year, I had my fill of fundraisings. Some I didn’t mind; however, when they started coming home begging me to give them a dollar to wear a hat for Diabetes or Cancer or some other fundraiser, I hit the limit of my endurance.  I was sick of my little guys’ hearts being manipulated for money.

Let me give another example.  If my husband and I were divorced (which we aren’t), and I asked my children to ask their dad for the child-support payment, I would be taken to task by the government’s Child Services.  I would be chasitised for manipulating my children to achieve an ends.

Which is what I think some of those school fund-raisers do–or rather that is how they go about soliciting funds–by preying on the tractable hearts and minds of my children.

Children are so responsive to cries for help.  They do not see the “man behind the curtain” as in The Wizard of Oz.  They do not doubt that the person asking them for help has ulterior motives.  They are like little birds in the nest, happily opening their mouths to swallow the food their mother bird, or others that the mother bird trusts, drops down their gullets.

Based on this reasoning, I do not want my little guys listening to Tuesdays speech, beamed into my children’s classrooms, without parental guidance.  How many of those children will think the president is directly talking to their classroom or their school.  Imagine! The president needs their help!  “Gee, Mom, President Obama says I can help him.  He wants me on his side.  Wow-I need 3 ways to help him.  My teacher helped me come up with a plan.”

My malleable, trusting sons will come home telling me we need to help the President of the United States implement his socialist agend.  Then Iwill be the bad guy because I do not believe in his plans.

My high school students are different.  We have discussed politics, our beliefs, and history.  I am a firm believer that you need at leat 3 reasons to believe what you believe.  You just cannot believe because your mama or daddy does.  Understanding why you stand for something is critically important.

Faithful did his sophomore paper on the difference between capitalism and socialism.  Most of the students in his class seemed to think that socialism was the way to go.  “Everybody should get equal pay,” they said.  “After all, not everyone gets the same opportunities.” My son responded, “Well, do you want the garbage man doing brain surgery on you? ”   

Marx’s ideological theory, “From everyone according to his ability to everyone according to his need” is the foundation of exploitation and reducation of freedom.  There is no American Dream in socialism.

Our forefathers fought to keep the government out of our life, our religion, our dreams, and out of how we raise our children.  A president attempting to beguile each child in America, trying to get little children to promote his agenda, doeson’t seem like the government that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison established.

When President  Obama goes into each classroom, bypassing our own community checkpoints like our school boards, bypassing parents–it sure seems like government is getting pretty personal, pretty intimate with our day-to-day life.

Even more insidious is that he knows those children will go home all pumped up, like they do for those fundraisers, begging their parents to support a president whose plans they cannot even begin to understand.  They just want to help. When their parents do not jump on the bandwagon with them, guess who ends up being the bad guy? The government driving a wedge between parents and children sure doesn’t sound like my America.

On Tuesday, my two youngest sons will be having ice cream with me and their dad while President Obama speaks.  We’re going to be reading the Preamble and Article 2 of the Constitution.  We might even talk about what President James Madison, the 4th president of the United States, thought when he wrote the Federalist Paper 45.

In Matthew 22:21,  Jesus says to “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” So far, in American, my children do not belong to our government.  They belong to their parents.  Let us keep it that way!

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♥ Get Your Mitts Off My Mom’s Health Care!

Health insurance has changed since my first son was born.  Each year we do pay more and more for services.  When Perceiver of Truth was born, the state of Kentucky paid for all immunizations.  When Faithful was born, I paid a $5 co-pay for each visit and immunization.  When Joyful came around, the co-pay went up.  However, when The Fire and Power of the H.S. was born, my insurance coverage went up 500%.  I was given a yearly allowance of about $200.  The first year’s worth of well-child visits and immunizations was to be over $1,000.  The insurance market and customers should evaluate better ways to insure, but I do not want my government meddling in my health care.

Let me tell you about my mother.  About 4 years ago, at Christmas time, she started smelling things, experiencing a bad taste in her mouth.  Then she’d blink out for a few minutes.  When she ate, food started dribbling down the side of her mouth.  There were 3 second pauses between words when she spoke.

Mighty Doctor, Dr. Stephen Applegate, ordered a series of tests.  They found a brain tumor the size of a golf ball.  In the process of the testing, they found a rare, slow-growing cancer in the bowel. (I say Mighty Doctor because he was.  He took care of all the women in my family until he died from Lou Gehrig’s Disease.  He was all about the fight to live).

Surgery for Mom’s brain tumor came first.  She wouldn’t have survived if they did the cancer surgery first.  They suspect the brain tumor had been slowly growing for about a decade.  However, the tumor had not only enlarged enough to cause mini-seizures and affected functioning, but growth had quickened. Surgery needed to be done quickly.

If Mom had been in Canada or Britain, obligated to their health care system, she would have died if she had to wait a month, much leass a year.

The woman who used to have Ginger Bread House Decorating Parties at Christmas,

who makes the most beautiful wreaths

who makes the most beautiful summer quilts, 

would not have been here to make my Christmas mantel look so beautiful this year

( I pick out the stuff I like, but she makes it lushly pop),

Attend my son’s wedding,

See my son twirl me in the mother-son dance!

Or just be my mom!

There might be glitches in the business of health care right now, but I’d prefer the government stay out of my and my families’ right to the freedom of health care.  It is the best health care in the world!  I’d rather decide if I wanted to fight to live, instead of some government official telling me to throw in the towel.

Why would a government official care whether my mom died before she was “granted” permission to even fight to live?

I’ve always said I wanted to grow old, showing my sons how to grow old loving “The Lord.”  Maybe that means being an inspiration of faith during a health struggle, allowing God to heal me through the hands of a doctor.  Maybe that means my great-grandchildren coming to visit a granny who had an indomitable spirit who wouldn’t give up, who fought the good fight, and they want some of that spirit in them.

The choice, though, is mine. The choice is my mother’s.  It is not some government bureaucrat’s choice.

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