I’m Not The Only One

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while…

I’ve been swamped with finals and I was in the hospital from the 12th to the 13th with an infection on my foot. While I was in the hospital and began visiting the foot clinic on an outpatient basis using my Medicaid insurance, I began thinking about socialized medicine and universal heath insurance.

I have written about universal health care in the past, in support of it and the estimated 40 to 50 million Americans who are either uninsured or underinsured.

I know many conservatives are fiercely opposed to universal healthcare, arguing that everyone would somehow be forced to enroll in a government-sponsored heath insurance program, and that all private insurance providers would become illegal.

This is a ridiculous argument. Government-sponsored heath insurance need not have every single U.S. citizen enrolled in it for it to do its job. Currently, we have three systems of health insurance (excluding Medicare): 1) private insurance providers, 2) semi-private Medicaid, which requires enrollees to choose from a series of private insurance providers to cover the cost of health services and Medicaid to cover the cost of medicine, with a nominal co-payment (usually around $3-$5) and 3) straight-up Medicaid where the government pays for services and medication, asking for a small co-payment for all medicines.

Instead of the far-fetched scenario of the government banning all private insurers and Washington being the sole legal provider of health insurance in America, why can’t we just have an expansion of the current system? Many Americans are caught in the middle, too rich to qualify for Medicaid but still unable to afford Medicare or a private insurer, or to even enroll in their company’s group insurance plan?

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Note: Because the stories involving Don Imus and the Hip-Hop Summit’s proposal to ban the words, “bitch”, “nigger” and “ho” are over a month old, I have decided the issue is too old to blog about.

Therefore, I decided to offer a bit of trivia concerning yesterday’s American holiday, Cinco de Mayo.

You heard right. While Cinco de Mayo originally began in Mexico, today it is equal to St. Patrick’s Day in the U.S. while it is a relatively obscure holiday in its native land.

Most Americans believe Cinco de Mayo is Mexico’s Day of Independence, supposedly from Spain. This is an easy mistake to make, since our Independence Day is also commonly referred to as the Fourth of July.

Cinco de Mayo commemorate an initial victory of Mexicans forces against invading French soldiers on May 5, 1862 fought in the province of Puebla. Unfortunately for the Mexicans, the French ultimately won, marching right into Mexico City later that year and ruled Mexico as part of the French Empire. Fortunately, les mexicaines kicked out the French five years later (with support from U.S. Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson).

How exactly did Cinco de Mayo become an American holiday, you might ask.

The U.S. went to war with Mexico between 1846 and 1848 and won. The two countries signed a treaty which gave the U.S. the parts of Mexico now known as modern-day California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. This was about half of Mexico’s territory and home to several thousand Mexicans who automatically became U.S. citizens.

It was these former Mexicans, or Chicanos, as they describe themselves, who kept the observance of Cinco de Mayo even though the battle took place 14 years after their homes became U.S. states. Back in Mexico, the Cinco de Mayo holiday faded into obscurity and is only celebrated in the state of Puebla, where the battle took place.

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In the last few weeks, I’ve come across three issues concerning controversial language and the special interest groups that are attempting to launch an assault on our right to free speech.

The language in question refers to African-Americans, which has provoked various groups like the NAACP and even the New York City Council to demand firings and even symbolically outlaw use of the word “nigger”, a.k.a. “the N-word”.

The first issue began early in February, when the City Council announced a symbolic ban on the use of the N-word. Led by New York City Councilmember Leroy Comrie, he and his colleagues in the City Council and other advocate put forth in the Council a proposed resolution to call on New Yorkers to stop using the word. (more…)