Crossing Fingers for Obama's Health Care Reform

If carried out, Obama's health care reform might not make a big difference for me right here and now, but what matters is that it would make a huge positive difference for the majority of the people living in this country! I got irritated when hearing one of the CNN anchors mentioning that it's only relevant for the 47 million Americans who don't have health care insurance today--it certainly is very important for the huge amount of Americans who are UNDERinsured--which sadly turns out to be a huge group too.

And it certainly is relevant for all the companies that are bearing an ever increasing burden of paying their employees' health care insurance bills. By making health care a federal/state matter like it is in all other Western countries, the companies can concentrate on doing their business, which would free up money to R&D (and education of their staff) so the companies can improve their competitiveness.

It also makes me angry to see the Conservative ads on tv about how "some bureaucrat from DC will come between you and your doctor"--it's the exact OPPOSITE!!!! = Right NOW, an insurance company IS between you and your doctor. This fact costs some people their health and in worst cases their lives. Remember the guy in "Sicko" who had to choose which of his 2 fingers he would save when his middle finger and ring finger were cut off in a work accident? He had to choose the ring finger because he couldn't afford the more important and therefore more expensive index finger, even less to get both fingers back--THAT is not an acceptable way for a rich country like the US to treats it's tax-paying citizens!!!! No other Western country treat its citizens like that!!! I know, being Danish and having lived in three other European countries, among them Belgium (Brussels, the EU capital). From a doctor's perspective, I can only imagine that it will be equally easy/difficult to save the index finger as saving the ring finger, so this sad ending of the story can only be happening because a greedy insurance company wants to sqeeze as much money out of sick people as they possibly can--their profits mist be outrageous!!!...and ever-increasing it seems, seeing that the burden of health care bills grows on both companies and the states/federal authorities.

I know the economy in this country is under immense strains right now (again due to excessive greed in the financial sector), but as Obama says, the country will go bankrupt if nothing is done to change the current system. And the best investment this country can make is in its citizens: keep them healthy and educated so that they won't be a burden on society, but a steadily increasing income generator.

(Source: The Economist)

I know Denmark is a tiny country compared to the US, Canada, Japan or Germany. But nonetheless, Denmark topped the Economist's hitlist in both 2007 and 2008 for being the best country to do business in. And during this current economic crisis, Denmark has been the least affected of all the EU countries, probably because its economy already is one of the strongest in the EU and has been so for years. In the 1990's, Chirac and Schröder looked to Denmark's flexicurity society that makes it easy to hire and fire while at the same time making sure no one would be left behind homeless if they lose their job. Thanks to some of the highest taxes in the world (together with Sweden) the Danes are protected by a huge welfare state that not only gives them free health care, but also free universities and money to live for while they study. I'd say the Danish model has proven its strength!

Links
Obama's health care plan
Wonkroom on Conservative Patient Rights Group
Conservatives for Patients Rights themselves
Politico on the Conservative add
Michael Moore on his scary documentary Sicko
HealthReform.gov
whitehouse.gov on health care
World Bank: Denmark no 5 in the world to do business in
The Economist: Denmark the best place to do business in

Bloody Shadow of America

Check out this fascinating picture of Obama's shadow:
(Source: http://otaviorios.com.br/ilustras/0038g.jpg)


A friend told me last night that there was still if not legal, then de facto segregation in the Southern states of the US when he was a child!! Crazy to imagine!



Speaking of bloody, I watched a documentary today on native American Indians and how they lost their land to white Europeans like me. It filled me with loathing and shame. I wish the misdeeds could be undone or at least repaired somehow. How about, as a start, giving the native Americans all the national parks back, possibly provided they promise to keep the nature in balance?

Lucky Day

Whoa! I just used my luck quota for the whole year: As I was heading for a meeting with the Prosthetics Outreach Foundation, I realized that I had forgotten that I never brought home my bike from Café Septième on Broadway this past Monday! By unrealistic luck, it was still there. Thus broadly smiling I biked the few blocks to the POF in perfect time for the meeting.

50 minutes later, I'm back on the street, but NOW my bike is gone! I look around, don't see it anywhere nearby, so I start walking a bit down the street. I notice a bus stop about 100 yards ahead and see a man trying to mount a bike to a bus that just stopped there. I feel lucky, so I run down to the bus, and sure enough, THAT'S MY BIKE! I grab the handle looking firmly at the man: "That's my bike! I have the key for this lock, you don't!" Fortunately, the bus driver sees everything too since in Seattle, the bikes are mounted in front of the bus. Shortly after the man gives up his story (someone sold it to me for $50. You give me $50 then) and gives me my bike. I unlock it and walk away shaking by the experience (I always get that right after an attempted stealing episode), but smiling at my IMMENSE luck!!! 30 seconds later, and my bike would be gone!!!

In respect of the limits of luck's nature, I walk to the bikeshop and make them tighten my exisiting luck and buy an Amsterdam proof bike lock, too, just to be sure.

May luck smile on all good people this sunny weekend!

Gay Rights On a Roll

I am so proud of the Americans these days: First they come out in droves to vote - for a president with a white mother and a black father - and now finally gay rights seem to be on a roll in the US too!

I wonder how much Sean Pean and his Oscar winning role as Harvey Milk has helped this development :-) Not that I needed to be turned, but I definitely loved the movie and want to check out this documentary about Harvey Milk.

No matter what has moved the people in Iowa, Vermont and now New York to join forces with Connecticut and Massachusetts, I hope this movement will continue to all the other states in the US - this is notably an encouragement to my fellow Washingtonians here in the North West: make it happen!

Denmark, where I am from, was one of the first countries in Europe to allow gay marriage:
"Currently there are nine European countries that give marital rights to gay couples. In Scandinavia, Denmark (1989), Norway (1993), Sweden (1994), and Iceland (1996) pioneered a separate-and-not-quite-equal status for same-sex couples called "registered partnership." (When they register, same-sex couples receive most of the financial and legal rights of marriage, other than the right to marry in a state church and the right to adopt children.) Since 2001, the Netherlands and Belgium have opened marriage to same-sex couples." (source: Slate)

Since August 2001, gays in Denmark can also be married in a church as long as both a mayor and a priest is present, but they have to find a priest that is willing to do so. The priests can't be forced to do it since some are against performing a wedding ceremony for a gay couple in their church. Oscar Frederiks church in Göteborg in Sweden was the first church in Scandinavia to marry a gay couple according to homotropolis.dk. This month the Swedish parliament voted that all marriages from May 1 2009 are gender neutral. Swedish priests that are against performing a wedding ceremony for a gay couple still won't be forced to do so though.

In December 2007 the Danish parliament voted to allow gay couples in Denmark to adopt children, after seeing it work well in Sweden, our more advanced brother country. Heja Sverige! Go Sweden!


Link time line:
NY Governor Introduces Bill to Allow Gay Marriage
Big Wins Re-Energize Gay Marriage Activists
Mayor Bloomberg urges NY to allow gay marriage
NY State Court Recognizes Gay Marriages From Elsewhere

A more pleasant flight ahead w United

Yes, oh YES! How I have waited for this to finally happen! Every time I get on on an airplane, my heart pumps with fear that I’ll have to sit next to an obese person that will at best make the trip uncomfortable for me, at worst, leave me harmed after hours of being unable to sit in a healthy position. I don’t know whether that famous story about a person that was crippled for life after being squished to the round airplane window wall by a severely obese person is true, but nonetheless it has frightened me!

So it is with great relief I hear this :-)

As for the obese, I do recognize that it is not solely their own fault that they have become overweight, seeing that unhealthy food is much cheaper over here in the US than healthy food is! A fact that vexes me greatly!!! That means that people with very little disposable income have no other choice than to eat bad food more often than they might have wanted to if they could afford to eat exactly what they wanted.

I point a big accusing finger at all the fast food companies to start taking responsibility for the obesity they create and start serving healthier food. I have noticed with great satisfaction that McDonalds in Denmark serve a children’s meal with incredibly sweet and crisp baby carrots instead of fries, and a very delicious top quality unfiltered apple juice instead of soda served with the hamburger and a plastic toy. THAT’s what I want all the others to do too!

Each state authority should also put pressure on food producers, food retailers and restaurants to serve better food. And schools should serve healthy food for lunch. I know it’s possible to do for a fair amount of money - or at least it is in Denmark, where unhealthy food is very expensive, and healthy food is kept cheap, and the British cook Jamie Oliver has proven it to be possible in the UK too.

So yes, don’t punish the people of normal weight in an airplane, but help stop obesity and help the ones already obese to get back to a normal weight. That will be a huge investment in the American society: to have healthier people living longer and being able to work for longer.

Read article on Huffington Post

Higher taxes on fat, candy and tobacco

Today I am a bit proud of being Danish: The government and their support party, The Danish People's party (Dansk Folkeparti) just agreed on a new tax deal for 2010 and 2011, where taxes on fatty foods, candy and tobacco will be raised even higher that they already are in order to encourage the population to avoid stuffing their bodies with unhealthy trash food and tobacco. American could REALLY learn from that!

After having lived in the US for just over a year, I still get angry when I compare the price of a non-organic apple with, say, a roll of Pringle's chips. Yep, you guessed right. When Pringle's are for sale - and that's very often - they cost the same as an apple that has been sprayed with pesticides and other chemicals that if they don't outright alter our bodies in weird ways, at least they are not known to do any good to us.

It's almost worse when I look at simple vegetables that are cheap in Denmark: cucumber, squash/zucchini, eggplant, fennel (at least in Netto you get a good big one for cheap), green and red cabbage, red beets, celery roots, frozen peas and frozen long green beans. All these cost between 1 and two dollars a piece (red beets about 2 dollars for a pound). Even asparagus are cheaper in Denmark, and that's not saying a lot! I can't get into my head why a fennel over here must cost $4!!! Or why an artichoke, even in season, must cost $4-5!! When they are in season in DK, you can get one for less than $2. Out of season when they are less fresh and smaller, you'd have to pay around $3. it's hard to say what makes me the most mad since there are so many competitors, but the winner will have to be the celery root: a tiny half withered head for almost $6!! Really? I mean, REALLY!?!? In Denmark they will throw it at you for $1.

I almost don't care how cheap or expensive all the unhealthy fat and sugar heavy food products in American super markets are, but at least the healthy, non-produced (and therefore logically cheap to produce!) food should be cheap!! It HAS to be more expensive to produce a roll of Pringle's chips than to pick an apple! The same goes for all other types of veg. It seems especially striking that apples should be so expensive here, since Washington State allegedly is a big apple producer?!

On the other hand, I wish it wasn't legal for producers of the immensely sugary so-called breakfast products from companies like Kellogs and others to make ads where they claim that their products are HEALTHY?!?! "Lower your colestorol", "lose weight with these [sugar-bomb] yoghurts" (Danone). In France where Danone is from, the parents treat it like a DESSERT, NOT breakfast!! If anything, they eat the "naturel" yoghurt which has no sugar, although it's still having some milk fat in it which is not good for your veines and your heart. But the chalk is great for your bones.

This country needs a food revolution. It would make the farmers richer, which I don't have a problem with, and the producers of unhealthy food products poorer (for which I will cry dry tears), but most importantly: America will be healthier and need less unhealthy and expensive medicine!!!! (and operations). THAT will be the very best investment an American leader can make in his/her country at any time! This is an invitation to you, Obama!

See more in Danish:
(http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Politik/2009/03/01/152448.htm#)
(http://www.dr.dk/Sundhed/dinsundhed/Sundmad/Artikler/2009/0115132942.htm)

Mardi Gras

Four years after Katrina has not been enough to get New Orleans completely back to where it was before the dreadful hurricane rampaged the charming city. But it hasn't stopped the inhabitants from keeping a good tradition alive: the Mardi Gras, as the French called it when they started it, or fat Tuesday, at English speaking inhabitants and tourists might call it.

Overall, this year the celebration was peaceful, except on this day: 7 people shot right after the last major parade went by and people were lined up along the street to watch the truck floats hoping to grasp some beads that are traditionally thrown from the troupes on the truck floaters.


http://www.mardigras.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/02/24/us/AP-Mardi-Gras-Shooting.html?partner=rss&emc=rss