And now, for a post from atop my soapbox.

Being that I am only 22 years old, and have only had my own health insurance for less than 2 full months, I sometimes question the legitimacy of my own arguments here... But nonetheless, what good is a college-trained mind, if not for making arguments without all the proper background knowledge? And what is a blog good for, if not to throw your opinions into the world for all to read (even though nobody might read it...)?

This argument is about health care. And I warn you, it may be long.

I am not sure why, but this topic has really been interesting to me lately. Amid all of the talks of health care reform and "socialized medicine", I couldn't help but feel the need to form my own opinion about the topic. I recently read a book called "The Healing of America: A Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care". The book was great. Somewhat dry at times, but mostly intriguing. The premise of the book is that the author (T.R. Reid) travels to various countries around the world to look at their health care systems... and in the process, tries to get help with his "bum shoulder". In each country, he talks to various doctors and other health care professionals, and tries to find out what does and does not work about their system. I don't feel like the book pushed for any particular model. It was kind of just "here's how it is!".. But nonetheless, I have thought a lot about what changes I would make to the American health care system.... That is, if Barack Obama should ask for my opinion. This is a little difficult to articulate, but here goes:

First off, I am pretty sure that morally, we have the responsibility to provide health care to EVERYBODY. The fact that we are one of the wealthiest nations in the world, and that some 65 million people (the numbers are debatable, and that's not my point anyway) can't afford to get basic health care is just ridiculous. We already have programs to provide health care to the poorest people, and to the elderly, and to children, and geeze Louise, even to inmates. And yet it's the middle class, those who make "too much", and at the same time, not quite enough, who get screwed. It's the minimum wage workers whose employers don't offer benefits, and yet their salary is far too low to pay for the outrageous premiums. And even if they can pay for the premiums, coverage isn't guaranteed, because the insurance companies can still turn them down on account of a preexisting condition! This is ludacris! And it brings me to my next point.

I think that it is totally immoral that insurance companies in the United States are FOR PROFIT companies! Every other country with a modern health care system has decided to make it illegal for a company to make a profit. When you think about it, these companies are weighing finances against human life. In order for their balances to increase, lives may have to be lost, and for some reason, that's ok! It's no secret that Americans love money. But it's totally disgusting that we love money more than we love each other.

Also, I am pretty sure it should be illegal for insurance companies to turn people down for coverage and deny claims. How can we be worried about government "death panels" when we let insurance companies play this role every day? Oh, now I see. It's because the insurance companies are doing it for profit while the government does it as yet another way to control our lives. Clearly.

I think that these are the most pertinent issues that we have to solve. The rest can be debated forever, but we need to agree that the business of health care shouldn't really be a business. Unfortunately, I know that economics tends to weigh more in this debate than our social responsibility to take care of each other.

I guess, in my opinion, what it comes down to is the power to choose.

• Are the premiums of private insurance companies too expensive? Then we should have the choice of a public option, which offers basic care for a more affordable price. I think this would definitely encourage competition. A public option is not saying that the government will completely takeover the system. It's just adding another option. It's allowing the government to act as another insurance company, to offer more basic services for a cheaper price (at least this is my interpretation of it). I believe that private insurance companies should still exist, to allow people to have more choices when it comes to coverage. In the true capitalist spirit, if you have more money, you can pay for more coverage. But we have to at least be responsible and make sure that nobody dies on as a result of limited access to coverage.
  
• I also think that our employers should give us more of an option of what health care provider we want to use. This would encourage people to stick with their insurance companies for longer periods of time (despite job changes and layoffs), thus encouraging the insurance companies to be more proactive with preventative health care... which, we all know does help to keep people healthy, and also lowers long-term costs. If people get laid off, the current premiums should be covered by unemployment benefits. I pretty much think that all people should be insured at all times. (Mandated, I suppose.. Kind of like car insurance? In order to enforce this, there should be a tax incentive..aka, no insurance = higher taxes.(I suppose this does not support my claim of "power to choose". ;) haha))
• We should be able to choose our level of care as well. I think there should be a mandatory, basic level of coverage for everybody, which of course would be the lowest premium available. The higher level of care that you want covered, the more you would pay for premiums. But I think I already stated this in my first point.
  
• Everybody should have the right to choose which doctors and hospitals they want to use, with no exceptions and limitations placed by the insurance companies. Even now, under this current system that we have, my choice of doctors is limited to my "network".
  

Other improvements/maintence to the system:

• Electronic Medical Records. I do realize that this would eliminate my current job (Which may be a good thing. I don't want to become complacent!). Anyway, this would be so much more cost efficient, aside from being a much more efficient system to begin with. And trust me, I know about the inefficiencies of the medical records world. I deal with this conundrum daily.
  
• Co-pays. I am still in favor of co-pays. Unlike the British, who believe that nobody should ever have to pay for health care, ever, I think it is still a good practice to have co-pays. This would help to keep premiums lower for everybody, especially for those who use the system less. There should, however, be a co-pay cap. As in, if you have a serious problem, and have to return to the doctor's several times in a month, you shouldn't have to pay more than a certain maximum amount in a given span of time.

I am not sure if this rant made any sense. It's kind of scattered, I guess. But there are a lot of ideas to cover, and I don't even think I covered everything I wanted to. If something us unclear, I'd be glad to try to rephrase it. I think I'm up for debating this topic with anybody.

Nonetheless, it's definitely going to take some serious work to fix the system we have. We always hear about how the United States has great doctors, superior medical technology, and innovative research, and I definitely agree with that. But unfortunately, we are very bad at allocating those resources. We have more uninsured people than any other wealthy nation, and we also pay more for health care than any other nation. It seems that with all of the resources we have, we should be able to figure out a better system. I'm not sure if Barack will be calling me for my input any time soon. But I hope that somebody out there is able to articulate a better plan. Because we definitely need a "change".

celebrity.

This post will be dedicated to my recent brushes with fame.

Last night, I was peacefully eating dinner at PF Changs with family and friends when Kate Gosselin, of Jon and Kate plus 8, and her two oldest daughters walked in. This threw everyone at our table into quite a stir, considering Betty and I, one of the ladies who was with us, talk about the show all the time. haha. Betty was really upset because she had forgotten her camera at a different restaraunt earlier that day, and was sad she couldn't take a picture. When I went to the restroom, I ran into them, but was kind of intimidated/didn't know what to say except "hi". And, bathrooms make everything more awkward anyway. But how exciting? Maybe. haha
(Speaking of Jon and Kate plus 8... last week, prior to the name change of the tv show, I suggested to Betty that they should change the name to "Jon; Kate plus 8", in order for the grammar of the title to better reflect the situation. Considering TLC just cut Jon completely out of the picture (making it just "Kate plus 8"), I am beginning to wonder if they have me bugged. Now would be a really awkward time to find out that I'm the star of my own reality tv show. ...Truman show, anyone?)

My second recent brush with fame hasn't actually happened yet. It will happen next week, when the movie "The Next Three Days" is filmed at the jail. More specifically, it will happen on Friday, when I am an extra in a "visitors scene". Oh man. This has potential to be hilarious. I have to take the day off of work, technically. But I will be getting paid minimum wage for the day. It's a fair trade off, right? The experience is definitely worth it. haha.

In other exciting news: I am going to the Steelers game on Sunday!! It's only my second ever!! I am pumped!

How I survived the G-20...

After months and months of preparations, and several work meetings detailing the special procedures that would be in place for the G-20 summit, I am happy to report that nothing happened. Nothing.

Working at the jail, there was tons of hype about how many arrests they were expecting.. with some estimates well above 1,000 or 2. They released a bunch of inmates with non-violent crimes and had extra beds put into the gymnasiums, thinking they would have to clear out the pods for new arrestees. Some people were talking about them renting out airplane hangers from the local county airport. No lie. And in the end, there were less than 200 arrests. haha.

We were prepped for heightened security around the jail. We had CERT and SRT guards posted every 50 feet or so around the building... and they had guns. Razor wire was put up around the fences, and the National Guard parked their hummers on the street corners, . I have to admit that having the National Guard protecting us is a pretty romantic idea. haha. But it didn't quite turn out the way I was imagining. The guards were just standing on street corners with guns, which made it feel more like Iraq than anything else. I could not imagine living somewhere where armed military personnel constantly stood on the street corners-- that's definitely not a romantic idea.

We were told that we would need to provide extra identification to get into the parking lot/building, and that the National Guard had a list of who was to be permitted to enter. But the first morning went something like this:
I pull up to the parking lot, and roll down my window.
I look at the parking attendant, and he looks at me, both of us waiting for the other to say something.
I hold up my badge and say, "I'm going to the garage?"
He makes a huge, cheesy smile, and says, "OK!"
The gate is lifted, I drive along, and nobody checks my ID. I walk past the guards, and into the building as if nothing is out of the ordinary. And pretty much, nothing was. Except that there was absolutely no traffic on my way into town, and I didn't have to pay for parking!

I think that the funniest part of this whole ordeal is that Pittsburghers just weren't putting up with anything. You're going to close down every road into downtown? Ok then, we won't go to work. The city administrators were sending such mixed messages about the whole thing. For so long they were talking about how difficult it would be to get around town, so everybody planned to avoid the city like the plague for two days. Then when people starting boarding up their windows downtown, and planning to be gone, the city got worried and started telling people that they should come into town. haha, Sorry, but bringing in an insane amount of police officers in riot gear doesn't really send a welcoming message. Luke Ravenstahl, the mayor, went on the radio Thursday morning to encourage people to come into town, assuring them that it would be safe. But in the end, Pittsburgh was just a ghost town for two days.

Despite everybody's complaints, saying that this summit was going to destroy our city, and that we would take an economic hit for it, I don't think it was such a bad thing. I'm definitely proud of my city, and I think it's awesome that Obama chose it as a "model city".. whatever that means. Yeah, it's true that 12 other cities turned down the offer to host this thing, which I assume makes Pittsburgh the 13th place model city. But whatever. I still think it's kind of a huge deal that all of the world leaders came here. Even Zapatero was here... the Prime Minister of Spain!

Oh, and, just an example of what happens when protests break out in Pittsburgh... they all eventually end in supportive chants of the Steelers or Penguins.





























Man, do I love this city.

Wanna be a Star?!

So, I walk into work today to see a brand new poster hanging on the bulletin board. "Wanna be a Star?" ... Turns out, they are going to be filming a movie, called "The Next Three Days" at the jail in October. And they need people to be extras. haha.

Well, I looked up this movie on google, and it turns out that Russell Crowe will be in it! What?! haha. I might just have to volunteer myself. I mean, this is going to be a real movie. Like, in theaters real. And just how hilarious would it be if I was actually in it?!

haha, I have to think about this. But this just might provide my life with a little bit of excitement and adventure. These days I have to take it where I can get it..

2009 Book List ... so far.

For the last few years, my new year's resolution has been to read 25 books in a year. Each year I have failed, but at least I have kept the motivation to try again. I know it's an easily attainable goal. Especially now so that I have graduated.

Being that I have just finished my 17th book, (and am in the middle of numbers 18 and 19), I thought I would recap my year's reads here. I have included some school books, but only ones that I read all the way through, and that I somewhat enjoyed reading, as well. Here goes:

1. Magical Thinking, Augusten Burroughs
   
2. Brothers and Keepers, John Edgar Wideman
3. Searching for God Knows What, Donald Miller
4. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
6. A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
7. The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls
8. Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
9. House on the Lagoon, Rosario Ferre
10. Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer
11. Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller
12. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
13. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon
14. Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell
15. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling
16. El Principito, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
17. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling

Currently Reading:

• Irresistible Revolution, Shane Claiborne
• The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care, T.R. Reid

Books that I am currently anxious to read (and are currently sitting on my bookshelf):

• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling
• Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis
• The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

That leaves me with one more to choose for my 25. And of course, there may be substitutions in there. And who knows, what if, for the first time in my life, I read more than 25 books in one year? Woah, that's just a little toocrazy to think about!

It's Football Season!

Well, today marks the official beginning of the football season. I am so pumped. There is nothing like Pittsburgh during football season. And, I have a good feeling about this year. :)

Honestly, today was like a holiday in Pittsburgh. Everybody at work was in a good mood. The ONLY topic of conversation on the radio was the Steelers. There was so much talk about the free Tim McGraw/Black Eyed Peas concert. Traffic around town seemed to be ridiculous today, with everybody headed into town for the game/concert. Everyone has plans for the game. And most importantly, tomorrow morning's radio shows will be full of Steeler talk and game recaps.

Really, I haven't done anything too special tonight. I'm just sitting here at home, enjoying the game by myself (and reading Harry Potter during commercial breaks). And I'm getting really excited that this will be my routine for the next 17 weeks.

Favorite quote of the game so far:
"That was amazing! --Then again, it's Troy Polamalu" --announcers after Troy's interception.

Also, The Office comes back next Thursday!
This fall is looking up to be a good season.

Name That Duggar!

After hearing the news that the Duggar Family will be having another child, (this is 19?), Betty and I have decided to help the family out by running a contest in order to come up with a few name suggestions. After all, just how many names are there that begin with the letter 'J'?? Unfortunately, being that we both work at the jail, many of the names that we come across seem to be ill-suited to the family's image.

Nevertheless, all suggestions welcome!