In Haiti the joy of the day was a man found after 11 days! That’s well worth celebrating.

There is also talk of suspending the rescue effort. If I know rescue teams, especially those with dogs, it’ll take more than a suggestion or even a command to get them to stop while there’s any chance at all. As if Haiti didn’t have enough to worry about they got hit with a very strong aftershock that measured over 6.4 . If you’ve ever been in a big earth-hammer (earthquake) you know that’s one helluva quake. I have more than once but then I live in Southern California where we don’t even notice the 2’s or 3’s. They don’t even count.

Heathcare reform is stalled. There are several options. I’m not expert enough to try and lay them out for you so I’ll suggest you read @karoli ’s blog entries titled “Random Things and Why The Senate Bill Must Pass”. She’s very good at the topic. My own personal medications have a cash cost over $700 a month. Yep. We sure don’t need health care reform.

I would like to see, as a first step, an end to pre-existing condition exclusions, an end to the terminating of coverage if a person does get sick, (bet you didn’t know they did that on a regular basis) and cost limitations for those that have pre-existing conditions. One way they limit coverage now is to price it out of reach. If I were to get accepted my insurance agent tells me my cost, for just me, would be over $1300 a month. Gosh. I wonder why I don’t jump after that insurance? That’s assuming they accept me after a doctors exam.

It’s a sad state of affairs in this country. Want more?

Veterans coming home with record numbers suffering from PTSD and we have only three dedicated treatment centers in the US. One is in Tuscon, AZ. I got to know one of the doc’s there and he told me that his ‘counseling sessions’ were exactly 15 minutes long. How sad. All he could do is write prescriptions. Period. How ignorant of our government.

Do I think  President Obama knows that fact? No, I don’t. But how many years would it take to get the money, hire the doctors and perhaps build the facilities? Who knows.

And there you have it. I’m sad because the actions that could really help in this country will take so long that we won’t have patience for it. Isn’t that a central problem? We don’t admit that things will take decades not years much less a single year. I’ll write more on this another time. Not tonight.