August 21, 2009

• All I hear is.. Obama Care

  Wow… does anyone think about anything other than Obama Care? This is a simple man on the street observation so please bear with me. I know that Comprehensive Health Care Reform is a volatile issue. My aim is not to discuss my “side” of the issue as much as it is to highlight some comments and opinions that I have had occasion to (over)hear in the context of my daily life.

   

  About half the people I encounter are scared to death; scared of a new and unproven process that will intimately impact the quality of their life. Frankly, most people will admit that they hate the constant contention and controversy between themselves and their health care payment system. (Many have horror stories that are heart wrenching) Note I did not say health care providers. Most people love their doctors, hospitals, and other people who perform health related services on a regular basis. Their problem is the organization that is responsible for paying the bill that the caretakers generate. They are all too aware that so called optional health care procedures and appliances (such as wheelchairs) are already being rationed by the payment system. In many cases they have to fight tooth and nail for very necessary medications and procedures that are clearly beyond the scope of optional. I personally know of a woman who has been fighting with her health payment provider over their refusal to pay for the properly sized incontinence products that her severely incapacitated  son needs for comfort. People fear that their providers will also be required to follow a protocol that will not allow them to receive the optional or elective care needed if their situation falls outside pre-established parameters of necessity, age, or current health levels or when the allocated numbers of approved “procedures” are exceeded. And on… and on… and on…  By the way, many surgeries such as Cardiac Bypass Surgery, hip replacement, and radical spine straightening surgeries for scoliosis are currently considered as elective procedures; lifesaving and necessary, but elective none the less.

   

  People may say they want change but change is very difficult for people to acclimate to or accept when it shows up at their own front door.

   

  The other half fall into the category of “what’s in it for me” and “how much deeper is the government going to ram its hand into my pocket”. The socio economic jealousy between Americans is growing at an alarming rate. The poor are envious of the “rich” (defined as anybody with more money than themself) and the rich resent the growing number of “freebies” and giveaways being funneled to the poor. Both want better service and more perks for less money out of their paychecks. Let the other sucker pay for it. Nobody wants to see a reduction of benefits.

   

  All are concerned about a government that has champagne tastes on a beer budget.

   

  So what brought this rant on???

   

  I just finished reading about the difference between linear thinking and global thinking.

   

  The differentiation … between linear and global thinking can be best described with examples. The linear thinker moves one mental step at a time down the path of logic, consuming and digesting each piece of information before moving to the next.

  The global thinker (also known as branching logic) pursues multiple paths of information gathering and processing simultaneously, bringing all relevant parts together at the end.

  Linear thinkers tend to be left brain dominant while global thinkers tend to be right brain dominant.

  We tend to think of linear processors as "slow" because they often take more time to reflect before speaking and work through an issue fully before acting. Global processors are often "quick" and respond much sooner to a stimulus than their linear counterparts. They often make more mistakes, are generally risk takers, and more often gregarious.

  Vana Prewitt, Praxis Learning Systems
  
  

   

  Perhaps it is time to put a few more linear thinkers into government where…

   

  taking more time to reflect before speaking and working through an issue fully before acting

   

  could prove to be beneficial.

   

  Just a thought…

   

   

  • 12:43 PM
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