Health and welfare

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I am getting angrier and angrier about the heath care system in the United States. Probably similar in many other countries.

Good health is the basis for everything else good so why is the health care system so neglected and badly run.

I don't end my questions with question marks when I'm angry and the answer is irrelevant as you can tell. What's relevant is a solution.

No one should be homeless.
Mental illness should not be treated any differently than physical illness because they're unentangleable and equally serious.
Everyone should have access to the best health care. (Duh. What an idealistic notion.)
People should be brought up to care more about their fellow humans (not to mention animals) and understand that the way that they treat others could easily be inflicted on them by others just as uncaring so they'd better start looking out for one another.
No one should be shunted to a job that is considered low-level. The education system does that now starting at least by middle school by its tiered educational system that leads some students, generally those from less privileged backgrounds, into the hardest most thankless most soul-destroying jobs.
No one should have to clean up after others like their maids while the others have fun. It's bad for their happiness and mental health.
How many pieces of paper with presidents' faces on it or even numbers before a decimal point stored on some computer that someone has to their name should not determine their quality of life. Everyone should have equally good quality of life. No one is better than anyone else. So why do some get to live so much better.
All of this is very obvious, that people should be treated as humans, but something must be done about it, I can't take it. I come up with ideas for homeless shelters and housing for people like me who can't fit into the capitalist corporate structure of society but... well I'd need more than $100 to get anything done. Or else just a really grand plan. And I'm not a leader. I'm just an idea-haver.

Anyways.

What ashes? Sorry I don't know that figure of speech. I just want a sense of being responsible to one another because we are all each other has got to be fostered in schools and so on from an earlier age. A sense of the reality of others' suffering instilled so that they of their own humane volition will want to help. No coercion.

Any ideas or programs I'm coming up with would be completely voluntary participation-wise also.

Everyone suffers and has problems of one kind or another and it;s just sad to see... I feel like this is getting so broad as to be meaningless, but I just think that where people can help and it's no skin off their backs, ie they have extra resources, those should be given to those who need them. Ideally. This could not be implemented in a democratic society, not by force, but maybe goodwill could be fostered by teaching in schools/campaigns that raise awareness of and enthusiasm for the idea that everyone is equally worthy of good health and welfare at the very least, which can be guaranteed by other humans if they'd complicitly sign a social contract to do unto others etc.

The health care system I have seen firsthand is a complete and utter mess so I'm just thinking idly about how that could be fixed by some kind of new movement cause the current bureaucracy of worker ants who don't communicate with each other or see the larger purpose of holistic health for all is not good.

So no, I don't think anyone should be anyone else's butler/maid, the opposite. Everyone should be equal *the duhhest of duh statements, no revelation and I'm not pretending it is one).

Complete strangers - well that's where I disagree. What exactly is to stop you from meeting someone on a train and finding out by chance you're their cousin or half-brother or whatnot? Not likely but it's possible for every single being you encounter. When you think of every being you encounter as possibly your brother or sister you start to think very differently about their welfare. You want the best for them. And everyone is someone's close relative, and those close relatives are close relatives of close relatives of close relatives of you by blood or marriage, so really no one is a stranger, there is a chain of caring and if you care for one person who is important to you you care about all they care about etc until you care about the whole world. Maybe. Hypothetically.

It wasn't really meant to be a rant. It was set off by my prescription not getting sent to the pharmacy like it should have so I got too depressed to do anything including pick it up. It's as silly and stupid as that.

I know I have no solutions. That's what I was saying. The world has problems! They need to be fixed! I know I am silly for saying this and especially for posting it on a public forum. I am just depressed and sick of it all and I looked at the forum listings and decided this belonged in PPR but maybe it belonged in the rant section of the Haven.

When I'm more mentally sharp I can offer some kind of proposal but now all I can do is complain. I feel like I knew I was making a huge mistake by posting this in PPR. I love to argue as much as the next person who loves to argue but I don't even have the energy to think let alone argue at the moment so maybe I'll post something in here later when I actually have a solution. As it is I'm just being a whiny baby.

Oh dear I think I'm not cut out for the internet.

One of the reasons this all seems so crazy is when I hear my mom talk about how things were run when she was growing up. She had many siblings in a large family and they didn't have insurance. They didn't need it.

Somehow they managed to get by hauling the sick kids to the clinic or hospital and any bill they had was something they could afford. Healthcare has probably never been exactly perfect but it's become an over complicated mess.

Also underneath that mess it's become a racket like so many other things in this country. Many different hands reaching into to the system to do some skimming and take a cut for themselves.

Probably the last thing we need is any single large system of any kind. In so many sectors of America I think we've been on a path to monopolies and we need to get away from that. More modest local hospital and clinic programs could probably make more sense of this then any single behemoth health system in Capitol Hill.

I agree with a lot of what you say, but I don't feel like going into to much detail for now because I am not really in the mood to debate about why I agree. I mean I think for as long as people are a live some people will have it better then others......but I think everyone should have access to things like healthcare and efforts should be made to improve the quality of life people on the bottom have. I really think how those on the bottom are treated by a society says a lot about the society.

And I was kind of mad the other day when my friend called me to tell me she could not afford her perscription, and yes they were going to refuse to give it to her even though she needed it if somone could not pay. Her sister did, but I was more than willing to.....I just feel sorry for those who have no one to help them out that way.

What is there to say?

Do yourself a favor and attend a performance of The Gondoliers.

With the best will in the world, From each according to ... falls flat on its derriere the instant it notices that no two have the same abilities or needs.

Re: naivete about the possibility of people treating each other as family:

I think a single social movement can do a lot to change the way people relate to one another. Facebook for instance. You can now see friends of friends and even friends of friends of friends and communicate with them and you are instantly drawn into a friendly circle.

I think it's a cultural change that needs to take place, I am not saying this democracy needs to be overthrown or anything. Like the fostering a real sense of community in schools from a young age by pairing students up in some way so that kids are encouraged to look out for one another instead of constantly compete and be divided by the ridiculous tiered systems that pretty much banish kids to "castes" from early on. There don't need to be castes, everyone has potential.

Oh and I don't think some people are better than others, and yeah I know you mean better off, more able to help resource and support-wise, but everyone has talents and the way things are structured presently a lot of people who started out just as able end up resourceless and needy and a lot of people have talents that aren't even recognized by the current system like... trying to think... a tendency to take only what is needed/frugality? Anti-capitalism within a capitalist society? These traits, the opposite of the instinct to climb the ranks at all costs, the impulse to live and let live, need to be valued more culturally which they aren't. Schools value performance and no one is graded on how much he/she makes sure his fellow beings are just as attended to as him, and I'm talking in the first-grade sense here and it only grows from there.

I am talking in utopian terms I realize and I am not saying I am one of the saints, I am as competitive as the next person, but the cooperative side that is in all people just isn't fostered in our society. And I realize I'm offering no concrete solutions other than "foster sharing and caring in schools." That's all I can think of at the moment. Just me basically thinking aloud in the wrong subforum. I have really appreciated hearing all your thoughts.