Dear kman, November 25, "Priceless, ..., Just Priceless"

Submitted by Alice Ann Stern (United States), Nov 28, 2008 at 00:20

I appreciated your discourse of some of the reasons why American culture and society has presently doomed itself. As far as "hope," the only hope is for the friends, family, and other loved ones of patients to help these patients to organize and take on the system head-on to change it. One cannot sit around and just hope for the best. What's the Arabic saying, Insha-Allah?" I can't stand it, when one says, "God willing." If one believes or disbelieves, God only helps those who help themselves. So it's time for the patients, their loved ones, and their friends to organize against the present "for-profit" system, so that more people will not suffer and more people will not die.

The same goes as far as our educational system. As far as the Middle East goes, that hell-hole will continue to be a hell-hole until the Arabs stop blaming everyone else for their present-day problems and start helping themselves. Whenever I hear an Arab say, "Insha-Allah," I feel like screaming. When an Arab friend in East Jerusalem tells me he will find a job to support himself, his pregnant wife, and three children, and then, says "Insha-Allah," I can only retort to stop the "God Willing" crap and start looking for a job.

The same goes for Americans, when it comes to fixing their public health system and taking care of their infirm instead of making them suffer so horrifically until their untimely deaths. After all, we are supposed to be a civilized society. A civilized society is supposed to look out for its most vulnerable and weak. If we are to conquer the problems, involving the Middle East, we first must behave in a civilized, responsible manner, where there is full accountability and oversight. A civilized society is one where there exists a rule of law; that is, where there are regulations and one follows those regulations without exception. An American can hardly prioritize the happenings of the Middle East (even if one is an academic, specializing in this particular region of the world), if he or she happens to suffer from a serious chronic illness and faces the termination of all of his or her medical treatments and any further access to the great American healthcare system, which is becoming obsolete in comparison to the EU's.

Our healthcare system now ranks #44 in the country -- lower than some Third World countries. Meanwhile, the taxpayer is being forced to bail out a bunch of rich, old men (alta cocker), who engaged in all sorts of malefic enterprises. I just see most Americans sitting back and doing nothing. So when someone asks you to get involved, when the patients do, in fact, organize, please give a helping hand. Things need to change fast. The only way things will change fast is by sticking one's neck out to offer a helping hand. I did appreciate your kind words. As for the Middle East, a lot of chronically ill patients are actually specialists in that domaine. But we can't do anything, if we are forced to lick our wounds and suffer in horrific agony without any access to our treatments. I could go on and on about how the civil liberties and constitutional rights of the disabled and the infirm are being violated each day, but I won't. Yeah, there's hope, but only if people do something to change the present system by actually doing something. If a patient asks for you to get involved in organizing, offer a helping hand.

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