The Triumvirate of Doom: Cars, Healthcare, and Food

So, contrary to the note of my previous post, here is another rant. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Case and I were enjoying dinner together at Easton this evening. I opted for Chipotle because I'll eat it any chance I get. Casey needed something coffee-esque, so he got Potbelly, where he got a mocha shake. We sat at a picnic table outside, each consuming our respective fast food.

The picnic table was situated next to a parking lot, where cars would screech by at top speed, upsetting the pleasantness of the moment. Sitting there, with these noisy cars for whom this place, Easton, was made, stuffing our faces with cheap food lacking nutritional value and loaded with calories and chemicals, our asses getting fatter by the second and likely forming the free radicals in our organs that will later become cancer, it dawned on me. All of these unhealthy and destructive systems, our car nation and suburbanization, the food-like substances system, and the miserly health care (or should I say sick care) industry are weaved together into a quilt of doom. This quilt is not one that you would receive from your bored grandmother, or one that Vera Bradley would shred to create an ugly purse. This quilt is used to strangle you and carry your remains.

It really started with the cars, didn't it? Well the marriage of the car and the suburb. All of those war vets coming home for WWII needed a place to live, the old government story goes. So the Fed began insuring loans for people to buy houses. But they only guaranteed them for white people... and instead of doing something logical, like encouraging homeownership or renters to dwell in the inner city, where they had traditionally, the government only insured home loans in the suburbs. The result was a nation of cookie cutter houses spread so far apart that the car industry made a windfall providing every single last homeowner with a car or two. To get all of these people into the city with their cars in an efficient way, we had to bulldoze vibrant urban neighborhoods, most of them belonging to African Americans, to make way for highways. And to feed all of these people quickly, we had to create the fast food industry, which was the catalyst for the disgusting food system we are stricken with today. (Note that most everything you buy at the supermarket is produced a la fast food, even the vegetable produce, which means that your spinach might be contaminated with e. coli... so eat organic!!)

Now, no one is walking to work anymore because there is nowhere to walk, and it's too far away. We are slaves to the vehicles. And because the quality of our food is sacrificed to speed and quantity, we are getting sick on a massive scale. (Go see Food, Inc... I won't even visit how angry I was after watching that film, except to say that if any corporation can be called nefarious, it's Monsanto.) So we are getting fatter and we are getting sick because of this lifestyle.

Enter the HMO to make another windfall on our fat asses. Most civilized countries realized a long time ago that a single payer system is the only way to provide health care to everyone in an efficient and humane way. And health care is a right!!! It is also a responsibility, but it is a fundamental right.

But in the US, where profits are always put before people, the government left the responsibility of our health as a nation in the hands of these HMOs. Like any for profit company, the goal is to cut costs. That means, denying you coverage and benefits that you paid for; that is, if you can afford the outrageous costs in the first place.

It is absolutely no wonder that we are fat, sick and broke. The system on a macro level seems almost designed to keep us that way. Very few people have the means to escape the slavery that is the automobile and fast food. And no one goes unaffected by our pitiful health care system. Fortunately, Obama has begun to address health care... let's hope he succeeds. In the mean time, eat smart, ditch the car, and move into the city, where you are often forced to walk. It's a happier place :)

Detroit v. New York

Like everyone else, I was royally pissed to hear about the Big Three Execs flying to DC on private jets to beg for money for their failing companies. I am personally vested in GM because my mother, Mama T, works for the company as a laborer. Seeing these rich ass holes flaunting their wealth just proved to me the disgusting degree of the disconnect between the welfare of a company and that of the capitalists who own and run it. It almost seems as though they don't give a shit if their companies fail, because they will still be walking away with hundreds of millions in severance pay.

My mom has seen drastic cuts in insurance coverage, and her pension is now largely her own responsibility (without contribution from the company.) For instance, as a family (of two kids under 6, herself, and me) we are allowed three doctor appointments per year. I went to the doctor recently, thinking that it would be covered by insurance, and later received a bill for $150. The prescription I had was not covered either, and I had to pay $40 per refill.

Thus it feels criminal that GM CEO is enjoying unprecedented (in GM's history) compensation. Shouldn't he be taking cuts like our family has? No one would question his or his family's right to unlimited access to medical care. Hell, no one would question his right to at least five luxury homes, located across the globe in the most beautiful locales. I guess it's too much to ask for him to cut back, sell a couple of those mansions, for the sake of the whole. Instead, the poor folk that break their backs day after day will have to internalize the costs.

That being said, I was listening to NPR today when a story compared this scenario to that of the financial institutions. The reporter pointed out that the latter, New York companies, didn't have to do much work to receive bailout packages. Indeed, they were throwing lavish parties the day after with government monies. The Detroit companies are asking for fractions of the amount received by the New York companies, but the government has been reluctant to grant these funds. While it was outrageous that the CEOs flew in on private jets, and that they were unprepared for the meeting in Congress, why isn't the government rushing to their aid, as it did for the New York financial companies?

It should be said that the financial companies play a perhaps more important role in the functioning of the economy, by providing credit for other sectors. But can we really afford to let the Big Three go broke, especially when we consider the extent to which the Midwest relies on them for employment directly and via complimentary companies? I don't know what the solution is, but I am telling Mama T to start looking for some other employment options, because I definitely don't have room for everyone here in my little Columbus apartment :)