I know. It almost sounds like an oxymoron (or, perhaps, “oligmoron,” might be more appropriate). I started off a post that I titled, “Obamacare,” yesterday, but I couldn’t get the wording right. So this morning I am blogging from my iPhone trying to get something out. I’ve slowly been learning the ins & outs of WordPress, but I don’t have any formalized content. As I’ve explained elsewhere, I sort of think of this as a self-funded Herb Caen-ish encore career. I guess this sort of activity feels a bit like that. I’m thrilled to know I can blog from bed.
Yesterday, in the unpublished post, I was remarking that the news I heard left me the impression that Trump was going to make good on his campaign promise to raze Obamacare.
I wanted to comment about Obamacare as it is a main focus of the Angina Monologues. In the most postmodern of actions this, “Progressive,” president was reviled by conservatives for passing what might be one of the most retrogressive laws in the nation’s history. The ACA exists for exactly one purpose; to keep healthcare in the private sector. And, in doing so, he freed the health insurance industry from any sort of oversight. The insurance companies could determine exactly how health care would be doled out without the interference of any pesky regulations. When conservatives criticize it they tend to characterize it as a government handout, but anyone who has sought coverage on the exchanges knows it is anything but that. The costs are not being borne by the taxpayers. They are borne by the people purchasing the insurance. That fact is reinforced by the number of large insurers who have left the exchanges as they started to realize the consequences of treating symptoms rather than diseases. That’s the lesson of the big 2 diseases of our day, Type II diabetes and heart disease; You can treat the symptoms until you’re blue in the face, but if you don’t address the disease, itself, the disease will always win.
That is the lesson I would like this blog to teach; that to succeed over heart disease you must address the disease, itself, and the only way to address the disease is to revise the lifestyle that created it. As I figure out how to develop the site I hope the Anigina Monologues will grow into a sanctuary for people who are undertaking the difficult task of addressing that disease. ( In the meantime do what I do and use The McDougall Plan for your sanctuary.) Everyone seems to be against us; the food industry, the medical industry, the pharmaceutical industry. But, the truth is that they all have the best of intentions. As Doctor McDougall has said, “It’s nothing personal.” They’re all just trying to make a living. And in the process they are enabling us to kill ourselves.
I didn’t think we were the type of people who would give in to an oligarchy, but, if the oligarchs are going to try to use us by getting rid of the laws that empower them, I say, “Bring it on !”
Mark Covello
December 17, 2016
Pacifica, California
