Sometimes Your Kids Make You Want To…….

After my low number of readers (likely lower after my hiatus) stop cursing me for not writing a new post for several months, they can fill in the blank. The image that of course comes to mind is Homer Simpson choking Bart and yelling “why you little..” But for any parent, especially a single one, there are many times that you can envision yourself doing this. Of course it happens when you are tired (until last night, I haven’t been sleeping very well), the weather is cold, they have missed naps and you have to run errands (like Costco and Bed, Bath and Beyond).

So when you get to the point of wanting to choke, smack, kick or tar and feather, you typically resort to one of the following:

• Getting angry, either very loud at home or in that slightly quiter voice that you hope nobody else in the store hears
• Shaming them, such as “Do you want everyone to think that you are a baby instead of a six-year old”
• Threats, such as “You won’t get to go to that party or you won’t get to play on the computer”
• Bribes, such as “If you behave yourself, you can have a piece of candy when you get home”
• Timeouts

Of course,  all of these tactics have serious downsides. Getting angry rarely works and just the kids more upset or more likely to take it up a notch. Shame might work a little better, but kids tend to not to care how complete strangers view them. Threats might work for a short period of time, but the kids know that they are often hollow. If you threaten to withhold TV, then you as the parent get no break and the kids know who that works. Bribes, while often highly effective, also set a bad precedent and you can’t go the well every time.  Timeouts are not always practical away from the house.

Today was a particularly tough day and the kids were acting up, despite be brandishing the threat of not going to a party tonight at my disposal, I bumped into a friend at King Soopers. She was at her wit’s end trying to get her kids to behave. It made me think that I should blog about this topic.

Do I know the answer to how to best deal with kids when they act up? Of course not. Even the most optimal rotation of threats and bribery won’t make a damn bit of difference. So I offer this up. Just deal with whatever nonsense arises. Then have a stiff drink and go to Facebook, Twitter, your blog or someone who likes you enough to listen (or pretend to listen) and just vent about it. It might make you feel slightly better and when other people will share their stories, you’ll realize that your kids don’t misbehave more than anyone else. Unless they are juvenile delinquents. Then they really do.

Egging On the Wackjobs

So despite the fact that my current Facebook status indicates that I’m done debating healthcare reform so I can enjoy the weather and walk the dog, I had to jump back into it after catching part of Countdown with Keith Olbermann and the Rachel Maddow Show. For the last two days I have been getting into pretty lengthy debates about whether these town hall protesters are dangerously out of control (which they are) and whether they should be muzzled (which I think they should). While debating the merits of duct tape vs. gags as a muzzling tool, I kept wondering what the hell had actually gotten into these people. How could this whole notion of reimbursing physicians in Medicare for having discussions about living wills and end-0f-life care have set people off so much? Are there really that many truly stupid (or perhaps ignorant) people who would believe that provision (which now got nixed likely due to all of the manufactured controversy) is actually about “death panels” of government bureaucrats making end-of-life decisions for people? (Rhetorical question- there could well be that many stupid and/or ignorant people).

But Rachel Maddow (who is probably a slight step to the left of my normal philosophy) did a piece that made me understand how the hell this happened. Three people, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich all took positions that were entirely contradictory to publicly stated positions to ones they took within the last year. I assumed Palin, who is probably the one most responsible for this, would have been more careful, if for no other reason that she might be eyeing a presidential run in 2012. But according to Maddow (and I don’t have the clip handy), she declared that a particular day in 2008 was dedicated to reminding people to create wills (living and otherwise).  Which she clearly forgot when she wrote her Facebook entry. So even though she quickly decided (after her own party called her crazy) that we need to have civility in the debate, the horse had left the barn.

Enter Limbaugh. First he praises Palin’s “intellectual heft” on this issue.  Then he starts egging his dittoheads on. But of course Rush has always felt this way about end-of-life issues. Not so much. According to the clip played by Maddow, he did a voiceover ad (typical in radio for sponsors of shows) for LegalZoom, promoting the idea of creating a living will. But being the unprincipled, hypocritical windbag that he is, he seems to have conveniently forgot that fact.

Now enter Gingrich. Here’s a guy that for all the damage that he did in the mid-late 90s,  never really seemed like an true ideologue. In fact, he seemed downright pragmatic on issues like Global Warming and Healthcare Reform. But shortly after Palin’s Facebook missive (and before she got slammed on the Sunday talk shows), Newt comes out and defends her.  Which would be fine for Newt, except that he wrote an blog post in the Washington Post about five weeks ago praising end-of-life best practices. Here’s an excerpt:

More than 20 percent of all Medicare spending occurs in the last two months of life. Gundersen Lutheran Health System in La Crosse, Wisconsin has developed a successful end-of-life, best practice that combines: 1) community-wide advance care planning, where 90 percent of patients have advance directives; 2) hospice and palliative care; and 3) coordination of services through an electronic medical record. The Gundersen approach empowers patients and families to control and direct their care. The Dartmouth Health Atlas has documented that Gundersen delivers care at a 30 percent lower rate than the national average ($18,359 versus $25,860). If Gundersen’s approach was used to care for the approximately 4.5 million Medicare beneficiaries who die every year, Medicare could save more than $33 billion a year.

So it really boils down to this. If a former state governor (and VP candidate), a popular (if annoying and dangerous) talk-show host and one of the leading voices in the Republican party (which is sad in many respects) all embrace an issue and then let the real provocateurs (like Glenn Beck) call for a revolution, this kind of mob mentality sets in, the wackjobs come out of the woodwork and all hell breaks loose.

So maybe I shouldn’t be arguing that we should muzzle the protesters. Maybe we just need to muzzle Newt, Rush and Sarah, three people that obviously knew better, but did the equivalent of yelling “fire” in a crowded theater.

Are They Retarded or Just Tone-Deaf?

All right. I better apologize about that title. It’s not really fair to anyone who fits into the category of retard, embecile or idiot to compare them to members of Congress. Granted, they wouldn’t probably know that they should be offended. But nonetheless, it’s still wrong.

Now to the point. I have been watching the last few months of congressional debate on health care reform from the sidelines. I do work for a company that sells software to health plans, so any commentary I make has to keep in mind that those companies help to put food on my table and a roof over my kids’ heads. But it is time to at least weigh in on a broader level, without endorsing or rejecting any kind of approach. And I will direct my comments to members of Congress.

There is enough polling out there to show that individuals are paying attention to the debate. This poll from Pew Research found that 95% of respondents felt the issue of healthcare reform was important, while another Pew Poll found that Americans by and large didn’t think our system of healthcare was all that great. And even when the questions are worded poorly, like the stupid Facebook quiz that asks if you are in favor of a government-run health plan (which does not have the same connotation as a public option or a co-op), a majority are still in favor of it, as evidenced by a Quinnipiac poll.

So here’s my problem. Members of Congress should be well aware of the following:

1. Americans (their constituents) view healthcare as a problem that needs to be urgently solved
2. A majority of constituents believe that we need to more than just tinker with the system (and CBO numbers explain why)
3. You have to solve both the coverage and the cost of healthcare issues simultaneously

Yet both the bills and the rhetoric coming from Congress would seem to indicate that they don’t fully grasp the public’s attitude here. The bills (like the House or Senate HELP commitee ones) that go a long way towards ensuring greater coverage, don’t focus enough on making the hard choices and driving down long-term costs, while relying on funding mechanisms that would not ever pass both houses of Congress.  Other bills (like the reported Senate Finance) bill might address the long-term cost issue, but then remove the things that will increase coverage and drive costs down in the shorter-term, like employer mandates or public options. And many of the Republicans (but not all) are just being useless and throwing stones without any real plans.

Which brings me back to my title. Are members of Congress retarded or just tone-deaf. Yes, there is a third option in that they are in the pocket of special interests, but I don’t think that can be the entire excuse. What is fascinating is that some of the biggest oppositon is coming from Blue-Dog Democrats in the house, who typically represent more rural or conservative-leaning  districts. I know why they are opposing certain things, but as Nate Silver points out, their districts tend to have higher (and not lower) uninsured rates, and would benefit the most from comprehensive health care reform.

I hate to be cynical here and I have confidence that a good bill will eventually pass. I also think that many of the members of Congress aren’t retarded (although some may well be senile), so I am guessing it’s the tone-deaf thing. Maybe they will get an earful when they go home from summer recess and will come back and do what their constituents want them to do.