Opinion: Trumpcare is Trump cares nothing about you

A son’s promise

“I remember my mother. She was 52 years old when she died of ovarian cancer, and you know what she was thinking about in the last months of her life? She wasn't thinking about getting well. She wasn't thinking about coming to terms with her own mortality. She had been diagnosed just as she was transitioning between jobs. And she wasn't sure whether insurance was going to cover the medical expenses because they might consider this a pre-existing condition. I remember just being heartbroken, seeing her struggle through the paperwork and the medical bills and the insurance forms. So, I have seen what it's like when somebody you love is suffering because of a broken health care system. And it's wrong. It's not who we are as a people.” Barack Obama [Wikipedia]

The quote above was the personal life story that inspired what we all know as Obamacare, the heartfelt promise of a son to anyone whose mother, relation or themselves might be faced with the onslaught of illness that they do not have to worry about the bills and forms.

This is the human story

Just imagine, faced with a life-threatening illness and all you can think about is whether you have enough to meet the payments to keep you alive. “She wasn't thinking about getting well. She wasn't thinking about coming to terms with her own mortality.” Yes, Stanley Ann Dunham was struck down with cancer and she was dead within a year of the diagnosis.

When she died in 1995 just 23 days short of her 53^rd birthday, Barack Obama had not even begun his political career, he was only married 3 years and she never got to see her grandchildren, they came much later. In what might well be the conspiracy of fate, his grandmother died just two days short of the historic election victory of 2008.

The decline in my health

However, let us leave politics aside and touch on the human stories. By the time, I had finished my contract in April 2009, which was the peak of my career in earnings along with the attendant signs that my health was beginning to deteriorate, I paid no particular heed to the danger ahead.

In the third week of June, I had guests visiting from London and Hong Kong; on Sunday, the 23^rd of June, we went to Kinderdijk to see the World Heritage Site of windmills and on our way back, literally, all strength ebbed out of me as we walked from Rotterdam Harbour to the station. When my guests who stayed for a week left on Tuesday morning, I went back to bed and woke up with blisters down my left arm, I had come down with shingles.

That did not stop me travelling to Berlin the next day for the CSD celebrations, but by the time I was ready to return five days later, I was too weak to handle my own luggage, the airline check-in clerk had to come round to place my luggage on the scales, I was taken by wheelchair to the lounge and then by airside vehicle to the plane.

In Amsterdam, staff were on hand to assist me and ensure I just about crawled into my home, exhausted to the point of expiry. Alarm bells were ringing, but I could not hear them. The shingles disappeared within two weeks.

The salvation of insurance

Within 3 months of that, I was admitted to hospital with full-blown AIDS, a culture of self-medication, blind stoicism, religion and just soldiering on had brought me to the very gates of death. Meanwhile, I was earning nothing and chomping through my savings completely oblivious of the entitlements I had earned over almost a decade of working in the Netherlands, what was I to do?

In 2006, the Netherlands introduced compulsory health insurance, a sort of mandated single-payer requirement that was generally affordable. I had the basic cover, but when I fell ill, that basic cover went the whole way to pay for everything needed to get me well again.

As part of my treatment, there was an 18-night stay in the hospital, full-board, 7 sessions of chemotherapy, each chemotherapy dose at today’s prices is 8,735 euros, my pills were about 2,500 euros a month for the first 6 months and insurance took care of everything.

Everyone for the few

That is the mystery of insurance – “a practice or arrangement by which a company or government agency provides a guarantee of compensation for specified loss, damage, illness, or death in return for payment of a premium.”

The idea is that not everyone would need to resort to it, but if the need comes, it is there to bear the burden. Without it, I would have died in 2009. That I have taken out of the health insurance pool more than I have put into it is just a matter of providence and regulatory processes put in by the government that everyone has equal assess to treatment at the point of need rather than with a bag of means.

Everyone who owns a car pays car insurance, not everyone would have an accident, buildings all have insurance, not every building burns down or collapses. The many in caters for the few mishaps. No one balks at the car or building insurance and health insurance is such an unthinkable thing? Really?

It is about a shared humanity, not socialism

There are different implementations of health insurance in the West, but America fares the worst in the provision of such. Some see the idea of health insurance as provided in Europe as the pinnacle of socialism, industry and profits must thrive in the provision of health and healthcare without the dead hand of government directing it and therein is the animosity against Obamacare from the conservatives.

The brother’s keeper concept has been lost, the heart of understanding human privation has been lost to ideology and politics. The politicians themselves are fully catered for health-wise, it is the people who have been seduced by the rhetoric that would suffer, people who would never have the deep pockets to meet the costs if illness strikes.

You can be down, but never out.

Unlike Stanley Ann Dunham, I did not have to worry about any insurance costs, I kept up with my affordable insurance premiums and soon learnt many months after of my social security entitlements that could cover most of my bills. However, that was not before I had suffered other privations pertaining to sustenance. I was back to work just under 7 months after my diagnosis.

Blog - Thought Picnic: No pills for the bills

Health insurance saved me and that is one of the great successes of the European social model that is under threat of being ripped apart in the UK with the way our NHS is being badly run by the Conservative government.

When I was down, insurance and welfare held the fort until I was able to get back up on my feet. If I all I could do was face bills and fill in forms without the space to think either about getting well or prepare for my eventual demise, a ‘luxury’ never afforded Stanley Ann Dunham, I probably would not be here writing this.

This is evil and greed at work

The desire to repeal and replace Obamacare is manifestly evil, it is borne of rabid ideological extremism to feather the bulging nest eggs of the already stupendously filthy rich whose greed for more wealth at the expense of a more equal humanity can never be sated.

It has not been costed, it has not been risk-assessed, it has not been studied, it has just been voted through to claim a legislative victory without a single care for those who would be most affected. [BBC News]

To quote a headline “The GOP's health care bill is officially a gigantic tax cut for the rich. (USNews)” This is was President Donald Trump is heralding, there is much else to say apart from that fact that the human story of affordable healthcare has been lost to the Shylocks of the 21^st Century, they don’t just want a pound of flesh, they want your heart whilst it still beats cooked for breakfast and if you’re still breathing, your brains for dinner.

Trumpcare is Trump cares nothing about you.

Africa and the mind-set of non-issues

Not waiting in vain any longer

I was not particularly ululating over Barack Obama’s trip to Kenya, neither did I find time to see what he was up to.

I did my share of waiting to wave at dignitaries in the 1970s when we stood as pupils of Corona School by the railway line at Bukuru, Jos waving Nigerian flags at the convoy of Yakubu Gowon the then Head of State of Nigeria and his friend Gnassingbe Eyadema from Togo when they drove up to Yakubu Gowon’s homestead near Pankshin.

Besides, every Children’s Day, the 27^th of May, we went marching to the salute of the governor of Benue-Plateau, J. D. Gomwalk, really, I had had enough of that stuff.

Treating people differently

However, there were some things one could not miss about what Barack Obama said in Kenya, some brilliantly highlighted by the Independent.

Obama was always going to talk about gay rights, but he had a broader thing to say about rights which, unfortunately, was lost on his host.

“When you start treating people differently not because of any harm they are doing to anybody, but because they are different, that's the path whereby freedoms begin to erode. And bad things happen.”

He could not have said that in any simpler terms, to codify the treatment of people differently because of their difference in the law will not only erode the freedoms of those people, it sets the stage for eroding the freedoms of the next vulnerable group.

Missing the point totally

There is no doubt that there are many vulnerable, voiceless and somewhat powerless groups in Africa, women, children, girls, the poor, the sick, the indigent, the minority by tribe, religion or some other association, they are all in line for a form for erosion of their rights eventually, even if it does not seem obvious now.

Uhuru Kenyatta a few months younger than Barack Obama and son of Jomo Kenyatta who led the struggle for Kenyan independence said in response, ‘gay rights was "generally a non-issue" for most Kenyans’.

That sort of dismissiveness is dangerous makes you wonder about the allegations of culpability that led to ICC charges against Uhuru with regards to the post-election violence in 2007 to 2008.

How many other non-issues?

The question becomes how many other rights are generally a non-issue for most Kenyans? How many minority groups have had their freedoms eroded because they have become a non-issue, an insignificance, a nuisance, a distraction and are readily ignored because they do not matter?

For how long will the leadership of Kenya follow the inclination of the majority to the detriment of the minority who they are also elected to serve and protect?

It was a poor choice of words, but broadly the issue of gay rights in Africa has become a litmus test of what its leadership is ready to address progressively in the name of human rights.

We lost many opportunities

They have expended so much energy in promulgating anti-gay laws to persecute and prosecute people who are generally invisible and in the shadows whilst ignoring the critically important aspects of rights for women and children, national development, education, health and welfare for all.

In the meantime, the seriously disaffected who have already concluded that they are viewed as a non-issue to the majority, have found the comfort extremist Jihadist companionship to wreak the havoc of unspeakable terror all around Africa.

The non-issue talk is a mind-set, a rotten one at that, because it goes without saying that many who have resorted to terror would never have considered it pathway of protest or emancipation if those who were supposed to represent them listened, engaged, participated and contributed to their wellbeing that they did not feel they were a non-issue but were acknowledged, respected and included in the greater and laudable pursuit of being part of their nation for its good, its development and its progress.

In pursuing gays, we lost opportunities to improve the lives of, and consolidate progressive laws with respect to people we see daily who are affected the most by our inaction even if they support our actions against the minority of the different and the other.

Obama sees the end of Osama

Osama in my slumber

Just before I fell asleep my Twitter time-line revealed Barack Obama was about to make an unusual Sunday statement and so my dreams were invaded by content broadcast by Al Jazeera concerning Osama bin Laden.

I eventually stirred up and the alertness that came was hit with the comprehension of my dreams, Osama bin Laden is dead.

A very evil man

It is a welcome development but it needs to be taken in context. This man was a very evil man whose Midas touch was death and destruction under the guise of an extreme form of religion that took its strains from Islam.

He found brotherhood amongst fellow religionists, usually sexually ascetic and repressed who were cajoled into giving up their lives for a paradise of debauched harems of virgins. With these bedazzled foot-soldiers he waged Jihad with impunity and unspeakable atrocity.

East Africa, Yemen, New York, Washington and spin-offs in Bali, Madrid and London, it was carnage like Armageddon and the man behind it every few months released videos to taunt and tease that he was still around – Catch me if you can.

The cost in life and property cannot be quantified in Afghanistan and Iraq, in some circles he could have been the precursor to the Anti-Christ, if a mere mortal can make destruction a global business you can only wonder about those who are destined to wreak biblical proportions of havoc untrammelled.

Justice is not served, revenge is

Amazingly, whilst he launched 9/11 from Afghanistan and was almost smoked out in Tora Bora he was found in a monumental edifice just North-East of the capital of Pakistan a classic case of hiding in plain sight.

I am not convinced justice is served, his actions changed our world that the rights, freedoms and liberties that many gave their lives for in the wars of the 20^th Century have systematically been rolled back in the blanket interests of safety and security, the world will never be the same again.

However, revenge has been taken, vengeance exacted and it is important that our celebration of his death especially amongst democratic nations should see this as the removal of a leader, a figurehead and an international nuisance, it would have been nigh on impossible to take him alive to face our courts and answer for the crimes he committed – we need to maintain that view of justice being served in that kind of structure.

Managing the fallout

An embarrassed Pakistan should have something to say about the unwanted guest that took residence in their country, as for the body that is in the custody of the United States in Afghanistan, he was shot in the head, he deserves no burial rites derived from the religion he professed to follow but besmirched with his actions and philosophy – there is a whole lot of rebuilding of systems, creeds, beliefs and reputations to be done.

He should never become a martyr and those who seek inspiration from his causes should begin to diminish and let our hope and future begin to take shape into a world that is safe, free, secure and less threatened by terror not forgetting the conflicts that allow for these extreme activities to take hold.

Palestine needs resolution, repressive regimes in the Arab world need to come to an end, some accommodation needs to be found for Iran, the Muslims should not find persuasion in the view that they are under siege.

The news today and the paralysis of analysis will for the moment be; Obama sees the end of Osama.

Thought Picnic: The Birthers have begotten a stillborn

The nasty movement

It is necessary to pen a few words on this matter because the micro-blogging forum of Twitter will just not suffice in offering a considered opinion.

For almost three years there has been a campaign contesting the eligibility of Barack Hussein Obama to be the President of the United States in that he is not a natural born citizen amongst other disputable claims.

That fervent, virulent and aggressive campaign became ignominiously named the Birther Movement. There is no doubt that this apparently innocent and curious search for documentation of Barack Obama’s birth, birthplace and circumstances of birth had nasty racist undertones that left facts in the wake of the sensationalist element than brewed from this non-controversy.

However, it became a controversy on which many were willing to stake their reputations all with the assurance that they were onto something and something really big.

The Donald

As many reasonable and fair-minded people grew disgusted even after tons of unimpeachable research showed that Barack Obama was indeed American and eligible to be president by reason of all evidence provided some were just unpersuadable.

Then Mr. Donald Trump, a multi-bankrupt wheeling and dealing real estate maverick billionaire who would give the creeps to the creepiest things came in the fray and basically launched himself into the murky cesspool of the Birther Movement with the prospect of topping the ticket for the Republican Party.

He made you sick to the extreme as your stomach churned with perplexed disbelief as he lurched and scraped at the person, the integrity, the education and the office of Barack Obama.

Trumped

In what is a masterstroke of class and resolve, Barack Obama had instituted proceedings to have his birth certificate released for public viewing to put the silliness to rest, once and for all.

In my view, that matter was unimportant but when some people decided to make a mountain of a molehill such that it had become an unnecessary distraction from the more pertinent issues of the day the reputations of the incautious, the blabbers and the megalomaniacs must take an irredeemable beating.

I would hope that Donald Trump for all his influence and money gets shut out of polite company as he eats humble pie in perpetuity with the label that he lacks sound judgement which should extend to all other areas of his exploits.

The lesson to take from this is one advice I would give to my worst enemy, “Don’t ever cross Barack Obama.” His silence must not be taken for stupidity, his coolness cannot be taken for cowardliness and his patience simply presages a ruthlessness that is deserved by those who fail to exercise good judgement.

Those who sat on the fence on this matter should suddenly find themselves tethering on the edge of an abyss that is the bosom of the extreme lunatic fringe – Obama is no cuddly pussy cat by any stretched of the imagination.

Reference material

Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

White House Releases President Obama’s Long Form Birth Certificate « FOX News Radio

The Certificate of Live Birth on request (PDF)

The long form Certificate of Live Birth (PDF)

Analysis: Behind Barack Obama's decision to disclose his certificate

Ghana: No antibodies for this virus - Obama's speech

Not the miracle speech

Commentary has been flowing online and on the airwaves about President Barack Obama’s speech to the Ghanaian parliament.

I attentively listened to what he had to say and then read through the transcript of his speech just to corroborate what I heard with what was said.

I was almost annoyed with the bellyaching that has come from some who seemed to be expecting this speech to end all speeches, a work of oratory to make Pluto a planet again, words that would change Africa like Jesus said “Rise up and walk”.

Indeed, there were so many looking to be impressed and bowled over that they might just have lost the significance of the visit to Ghana and the speech itself.

Ghana was really second in Africa

Africa has 53 countries and in the run up to President Obama’s visit to Ghana we had all been made aware of the reason why Ghana was chosen as the second African country not as the first African country to be visited by him, that was Egypt – we sometimes forget that Arabian North Africa is very much part of Africa, the Middle East is geo-political moniker, not a continent.

It is clear that President Obama was persuaded of strong democratic institutions and reforms that engender development and opportunity. It would also appear that he had only had two countries to mind that met that basic qualification for validation in those terms and he mentioned them in his speech as Ghana and Botswana.

No antibodies for this virus

However, what must not be lost as the significance of this visit to Ghana must be the fact that President Obama in his status, stature and progeny represents by analogy for the first time ever a virus against which the pachydermatous and megalomaniacal leaders of Africa have no antibodies.

One glaring fact is exemplified in this statement made in his speech, “the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade”. Imagine the deluge of condemnation and contempt that would have swept over him from the Grand Despot of Africa if this statement had been made by any other leader.

In other words, President Obama was laying down the ground rules for constructive engagement with a changing world, but most importantly declaring the fact that the responsibility for change in Africa is squarely in the hands of Africans themselves. The fallback excuse of the legacy of colonialism can no more hold water just as neither the Japanese nor the Germans can blame anything in their countries today on the losses they suffered in the Second World War and occupation by the victors of that war.

Changing focus of aid

However, I have digressed, what I take from this speech is the radical change in the way aid is distributed and used in Africa – rather than having aid bolster businesses and bureaucracies of the donor countries, it would be geared to helping build capacity in recipient countries by engaging local resources and expertise allowed for a greater percentage of the aid to reach its intended purpose.

This I think would appeal to the Dead Aid bandwagon that have argued that the aid industry itself absorbs most of the aid reducing the amount of aid that is supposed to reach the intended causes for which aid has been raised.

Democracy and the opposition

Meanwhile, President Obama has not redefined democracy but he has clearly indicated that it is definitely more than the sprinkling of elections, there is a governance, accountability and responsibility to being in government by the consent of the people and for the good of all the people for the duration of the term for which that government has been elected.

However, more tellingly about the state of affairs in Ghana is the way the President of the United States of America was greeted by both the government and members of the opposition. The end of brinkmanship politics based on difference, rancour, power and abuse needs to be in sight for things to progress throughout Africa.

Speaking to a greater multitude

President Obama might have been speaking to the Ghanaian parliament yesterday but he was finger-pointing at a good deal of leaders not only in Africa but all around the world which includes those who “change constitutions to stay in power” as in Venezuela, Niger, Ecuador, Peru, the botched attempt in Nigeria and the failed attempt in Honduras – your books are marked.

I was not expecting the speech to be the beatitudes or the Hippocratic Oath of democracy, rather, the speech struck the right balance as an introduction to what is expected of those in leadership and those who seem to be in power but not in office – for some listeners however, it was the Riot Act and it probably would have smelt like tear gas to them.

Attachment

Obama in Ghana file, PDF with pictures and transcript of speech available from http://www.america.gov

The message in President Obama's inaugural speech

What I took away

And so my trusty but old combo system recorded three hours of the Obama Inauguration which was running for another 30 minutes after I returned home.

Then I sat to watch what had been recorded from 17:00 hrs my local time.

President Obama’s speech [1] sent one clear message as it embraced and encompassed all those leaders around the world especially those in Africa without equivocation as I had hoped in my last blog.

There would be the time, the place and the manner in which to analyse, dissect and subject to deep exegesis the choice of words spoken by President Obama on this day, but these few words out of the speech speaks out to those who have yet refused to hear the voices for freedom and good governance.

“To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

I shall not add nor subtract from the import and intention of these words but that those who have ears, let them hear in Zimbabwe, in Sudan, in Myanmar, in North Korea, in countries that pretend to be democracies, in those that confer infallibility on their ailing leaders and subjugate their people to the despicable cult of personality but most of all, if this was not a message to Africa where every aspiring commentator or despotic leader seeks to gain validation by blaming our ills on the colonial past, then there is no new hope for humankind.

I believe the tenure of President Obama signals a great and momentous change to the world order and those who do not fall in line with aspirations for the good would be laid to waste and come to naught because this a juggernaut that is already on the move; if I wrote the inaugural speech, it would have ended with – “We say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.”

That sums up the will to win that begins to pervade our humanity from this hour onwards.

Hail to The Chief – Welcome to the era of President Barack Hussein Obama.

Source

[1] Text of Obama's Inauguration Speech | The New York Observer

Obama Inauguration: The message to Africa

Barking out the orders

The Obama circus continues apace and I already have my cage of seriously abused animals ready to perform antics for a paying audience as I crack my whip and bark out incomprehensible orders.

Well, really, I need to find out how to work my trusty but old combo Video Cassette Recorder/Television set system and make a recording of the event because I would be out at work when he raises his hand to be sworn in as the 44^th President of the United States of America.

One interesting attraction in this circus should be the gaggle of inveterate nincompoops that have been seized from the wilderness of the Heart of Africa [1] where the gigantism of the organism does not necessarily lend itself to civility, civilization or civil behaviour.

Only Ghana deserves an invite

As it stands, Nigeria is sending a delegation [2] to the Obama Inauguration, I am not sure if they would have front-row seats but if they do, part of President Obama’s speech needs to home in on Africans without equivocation and euphuism but enough to upbraid with obloquy.

The only African delegation worthy of being present by invitation and by qualification is Ghana [3] where elections were held without resorting to selfish small-mindedness, where the will of the people might not have been decisive but was conclusive enough for those associated with the incumbent government to cede power to a winning opposition without rancour.

The erstwhile Ghanaian leader gave way to his successor and did not like other rotten African leaders who try to evolve into interfering kingmakers descend into hubris and arrogance which prevents them from recognising that other citizens can have a go at leadership and attempt to do a better job.

Time to talk seriously

The politics of prejudice, the preponderance of tribal affiliation and the corruption of the electoral process through gerrymandering, vote rigging, the purchase of franchise or sheer incompetence needs to be given short shrift.

The kindred of colour deserves that the truth must not be spoken in leasing, like the old Jewish saying proffers and I paraphrase, we have the brotherhood of closeness to hear each other enough for how we deal with strangers on serious issues.

So as President Barack Obama gives his speech, the figureheads from Africa who have flown out for a junket in their proud flowing gowns looking for handouts of American favour because a black man enters in the White House should be shamed into recognising that they represent the failure of leadership in Africa to address the problems of Africans in instituting change and offering hope for a better future.

Do not mince the words

They should be made to realise that they do not deserve to be in the august presence of people who really do believe in public service and can inspire others to greater things.

The self-interest that has lured them to seek photo opportunities at the inauguration should be no better than having them as circus caricatures, held in stocks and pelted with rotten cabbages, rotten eggs and decorated in bovine excrement; if I had my way, the entertainment value should be found in putting them in dunking stools.

Meanwhile, Ghana should be invited to enter into the commune of the President and exalted as the kind of example worthy of a relationship with America especially an America lead by a black man.

The speech to Africa

His speech must not mince words as he says, “I am proud of my African heritage, but the leaders of Africa are figures of shame and an embarrassment, being in positions of responsibility and privilege but not rising to the call of duty to lead their people to a place of hope and better aspirations.”

“I seek Africans I can call brothers and sisters who walk in honesty, in dignity, in honour with a sense of responsibility and duty, who see the suffering of their people and rather than revel in the bombastic audacity of impunity have risen to the challenge to reach out to the audacity of hope for their people.”

Ghana is a beacon of hope

The example that President Obama represents to Americans in pragmatism, level-headedness, the independence from the politics of self-interest is attainable in Africa and within the ability of willing people who aspire to leadership to exercise with humanity, humility and a sense of responsibility.

As Ghana as shown us, the people are not alien to Africa, they are diverse like many other countries in Africa, they have similar demographies and differences but have refused to exploit them for personal gain.

They have refused to make politics a do-or-die affair and have been willing to recognise the abilities of political rivals without demonising them or brutalising them with the state apparatus or the abuse of legal process – Ghanaians are Africans of great possibilities and Africans can aspire to be like Ghanaians and with that also capture the essence of what President Barack Obama represents.

I wish President Barack Obama, the 44^th President of the United States of America Godspeed and the Africans would hopefully have learnt the right lessons to take home and work on.

Sources

[1] ::. Heart of Africa .:: Ministry of Information and Comunication, Nigeria

[2] allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Obama - Maduekwe Leads Country's Delegation to Inauguration

[3] Ghana's successful presidential election | A damned close-run thing—and a fine example to the rest of Africa | The Economist