Ponies and boarding school are privileges, not healthcare

I keep seeing all sorts of rubbish about healthcare being a privilege and not a right. Of course this dribble comes from the savants at Fox news, Rush, and the nonsense e-mail forwards I get daily from my grandfather.  It's rather telling that all the people saying that healthcare is a privilege are conveniently the same ones that would have no problem paying cash for doctors visits, but take full advantage of their employer-paid health insurance. I'd like to see how their opinions would change if they were suddenly poor and they or their children were sick, I'm sure then they would insist that they should receive all the treatment in the world.  These people should watch Trading Places again, only imagine themselves as Dan Ackroid...they already detest the Eddie Murphy's of the world.

If I never hear the word bailout again...

I am so sick of hearing the word "bailout", could the brilliant minds behind Fox news surely not come up with a catchier phrase by now? If we are to live with the word bailout for at least another 6 months then I think we should be clear about which bailout we so ardently disdain. Is it the bank bailout, the insurance bailout, or the auto bailout? 

While I think the CEO's of the auto industries and their henchmen deserve a sound flogging, I don't so much mind bailing out those companies. I think the difference for me is that the folks working at the auto industry are members of a dying breed of blue collar workers. There's been a recent shift in America, away from the blue collar jobs. Blue collar jobs are no longer good enough for the average American, perhaps rightly b/c most blue collar jobs don't provide a living wage, so all those immigrants that get such a bad rap are more than willing to take those jobs. The auto industry has held strong though. Its an industry that employs large numbers of non-college degree holding people, pays them well, provides health insurance and retirement. 

If the auto industry fails and all the workers loose their job they can't just go out and find another job welding doors, or whatever the specific task they are trained to do is.  If a trader looses his job, or banking officer, they have higher education and transferable skills, eventually they'll find something else. 

So perhaps its not such a bad thing to try to save the jobs of hundreds of people. Even though they don't make a ton of money or have college degrees, we should still try to help them put food on their table and keep them off the dole.