The Great Healthcare Debate: Facebook Style!!

Recently, a FB friend posted a video of Ted Kennedy's passionate plea for universal health care.

I and many others weighed in with a whopping 77 comments.

One comment-poster in particular, whom I'll call John because that is his name, seemed at first to have some interesting devil's advocate points. He had done a lot of reading and offered multiple links.

And then I started following the links and found that they didn't say quite what he said they did.

And then I found he began to use this tactic on me.

What follows are the final dozen comments in this thread. (His comments are italicized, mine are not. Original grammar -- typos and all -- are intact for your amusement.)

Enjoy!!

*******
Insurance companies are being dumbly demonized to pass this bill, and anyone who looks a the facts has to conclude that Pelosi & company has been misleading the public. That's why they need to go on a fishing expedition to find something 'wrong' in the spending of insurance companies... because the vast majority of people are just fine with their insurance company. That's why they keep paying the premiums.

People keep paying premiums because they have to -- but choosing the lesser of two evils still leaves you steeped in evil: Ultimately insurance companies are asking for your money or your life, and they know it. And that's sick. ...

And as to the "contract" that insurance companies claim is violated as an excuse to cancel expensive policies -- do you really think it's fair to deny a cancer patient care because she was once treated for acne?? Or to deny a person whose weight was written down incorrectly by the INSURANCE AGENT who SOLD him the policy?? See http://www.pri.org/health/ira-glass-health-insurance1517.html

Carol; whose selling fear?
You wrote that insurance companies are asking for your money or your life?

Thus the dichotomy; our president is telling us that conservatives are selling fear while saying things like:
"What is truly scary, what is truly risky, is to do nothing..."

Yet, no insurance company can make me buy insurance. At least, not yet...

I hope you'll pause and consider this thought: You seem to be arguing that having to pay insurance companies is evil. Correct?
Then why would you be in favor of a law that is making insurance mandatory, and where if you don't have 'adequate' insurance, you pay increased taxes?
How is that not *more* evil, given what you've written?

"no insurance company can make me buy insurance. At least, not yet..."

Um.... do you own a car?

yes, Carol. I own a car.
But its not the insurance company that makes me buy insurance. Its the government doing it.

Now I presumed we were talking about health insurance.
You were arguing that having to pay health insurance companies is evil.
Right now, you have a choice as to whether or not you HAVE to buy it.
Given your stance that paying for insurance is evil...
Why are you in favor of a bill that would REQUIRE you to buy insurance, or be taxed if your insurance does not meet the government's minimum standards?

Tell me again where I said paying for insurance is evil?

"People keep paying premiums because they have to -- but choosing the lesser of two evils still leaves you steeped in evil: Ultimately insurance companies are asking for your money or your life, and they know it. And that's sick."

Granted, I did use the words "premiums" and "evil" in the same sentence -- but that comment, either in itself or within the greater context of everything I've written in this thread, cannot be logically interpreted to mean that I have been "arguing that having to pay health insurance companies is evil."

As is apparent to anyone with a grasp of the English language who is not sealed within an echo chamber of his own ideology, the "two evils" to which I was referring are:

(1) Going uninsured, risking the possibility of a catastrophic illness that could leave me destitute or dead; OR...

(2) Paying premiums honestly and in good faith to a morally questionable industry that may, at a crucial moment, deny coverage because I was once treated for acne, leaving me destitute or dead.

The evil is in the behavior of the companies, not in the exchange of money.

To take my words and jumble them to erect a strawman opponent -- at which you can then take seemgly logical shots -- is a dishonest, manipulative or weakminded tactic (manipulative if you know you're doing it, weakminded if you don't -- and dishonest, either way).

And this is not the first time you've done so!

To paraphrase Barney Frank: Debating you is like having a conversation with a dining room table ... only a dining room table is on the level.

"Ultimately insurance companies are asking for your money or your life, and they know it. And that's sick."

Carol; no one could read that phrase, nor the one that sets it up, without fairly coming to the conclusion that you were equating having to pay for insurance as being evil. For you to call my repeating of that phrase as a strawman argument isn't right. Stop blaming my ideology for your wording.
You equate being uninsured with being evil.
I don't.
You equate trusting in insurance companies as evil, because you believe that they are morally questionable.
I don't.
Insurance companies don't stay in business by refusing to pay out. If they did on any bit of a regular basis, guys like me wouldn't be buying in..
Moreover, the current administration wouldn't be trying to get people to buy into their program by suggesting that we could keep our insurance... because a lot of people actually like their insurance.

That's not to say that insurance companies are without reproach... but the knee jerk approach to create evil where there isn't any is, in my opinion, evil.
Insurance companies are making 3.4 percent profit. That's not going to keep me up at night.

John, you said, "no one could read that phrase, nor the one that sets it up, without fairly coming to the conclusion that you were equating having to pay for insurance as being evil."

No one?? Really? NO ONE??"

I decided give your claim a reality check and created an informal survey using my status update. I wrote the following:

"PLEASE read the following sentence and let me know which choice BEST FITS the meaning of the sentence: 'Ultimately insurance companies are asking for your money or your life, and they know it. And that's sick.'"

In creating the fairest possible choices, I did not add anything outrageous or unusual (other than your interpretation, which you do not see as outrageous) to see if ANYONE would agree with your interpretation within the context of other reasonable interpretations.

Incidentally, I have many conservative friends and family members.

The choices, and my reasoning behind each of them, are:

A. Insurance companies charge unfairly high premiums; (not what I meant, but something many consider to be true; this choice is a red herring).

B. Having to pay for insurance is evil; (your looney interpretation);

C. People pay high premiums even though they may be denied coveraged on a technicality because this is better than not having insurance; (This is what I meant when I wrote it, but which might not be clear out of context.)

D. The health insurance industry is corrupt, unethical and scares people into buying insurance. (This is not what I meant, but is a fair interpretation of that single sentence, out of context).

Over a dozen responses appeared over the following hour. Most people chose "C" or "D." NOT ONE PERSON CHOSE "B".

NOT ONE.

It would appear that my wording is not such a problem after all. If you doubt this, repost the survey on your own status in its entirety and see what your own friends think.

Your wording, on the other hand, has more than a few issues....

You wrote: "You equate trusting in insurance companies as evil, because you believe that they are morally questionable." And you stated this belief is a "knee jerk approach to create evil where there isn't any..."

It is not the trusting that is evil; it is the behavior of the companies that is evil (which you may have meant, but this is hard to tell from your poor wording).

You cite the companies' 3.4% profit (this is down from the 4% you cited earlier, but who am I to quibble?).

Well, OK, that's true -- but take insurance giant Humana's respectively meager profits of 2.2% in 2008. Their revenue was $29 billion -- that's BILLION -- with a "B"!!

2.2% of a whole lot of money is still a WHOLE LOT OF MONEY!!

But the problem isn't with them making money. It is that an average of 18,000 people DIE EACH YEAR due to lack of insurance (this is the uninsured, and people who are denied, etc.).

Indeed, the problem isn't the money, per se. Insurance companies could make 99% profit for all I care -- as long as people aren't dead or destitute (or both) as a result.

But for-profit companies are beholden to their stockholders more than they are to the lives of their clients who depend on them. And they employ a series of despicable tactics to make their 3.4% (but still multi-mega-million-dollar) profits.

This is a conflict of interest and results in, yes, tremendous evil.

You say: "Insurance companies don't stay in business by refusing to pay out. If they did on any bit of a regular basis, guys like me wouldn't be buying in."

Sure, for routine matters, insurance companies can be great (as long as you're not seeing the insane premium your boss is paying for your coverage). And for most people, we bump along pretty happy for years. Maybe forever.

But those of us with a conscience or moral compass can envision a time when catastrophic illness or injury MIGHT occur ... or we imagine the state of others who are denied coverage for cancer -- like the woman I cited in the PRI article above -- because they were once treated for acne.

In her case, her insurer did finally conclude that -- surpirse -- acne is not related to breast cancer.

But months of paperwork and unnecessary stress went by before her surgery was approved; her tumor doubled in size and her chance for survival greatly diminished.

For a list of other such underhanded tactics, go to: http://www.epi.org/analysis_and_opinion/entry/health_insurance_providers_find_ways_to_prosper_as_more_people_lose_coverag/
Do you really want an industry standard that allows your insurer to fine-tooth your application for a typo -- or, I daresay, a misused semicolon -- and rejects coverage when your life is at stake?

Well, that is the current for-profit industry standard.

Go Free Market.

And for those free-market true-believers who insist that profit is the only and/or best incentive for excellence, THINK AGAIN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y

You have repeatedly said that I believe having to "pay for insurance is evil." I have not said or implied this.

You seem obsessed with this idea that those who favor health care reform don't want to "pay." This isn't our position at all, and if you think it is, you haven't been paying attention.

No one minds paying premiums that are reasonable -- as long as the coverage is delivered when needed. End of story.

You said, "You equate being uninsured with being evil."

Really? I equate BEING uninsured with BEING evil? Really? "BEING??!!"

If you really believe that I said or implied anything like this, then I hope your insurance includes mental health, because your projections are getting the better of you. You need help.

As such, I think it is best to follow Mr. Frank's lead and table this discussion.

Serendipity, City Slickers and a Festival of Cringe

I got a mention in Broadway World for my work in last month's CringeFest!

OK, so it's only three neutral words, BUT they listed me and two other "regulars" out of nine entr'acte performers in the festival. And I wasn't really even regular (Metamucil jokes, anybody?).

In fact, I was called in at the last minute to sub for a true regular whom I'd met briefly months before at a stand-up show.

In late July, I got an intriguing email asking for "fun local performers ... to be part of [CringeFest] by doing entr'actes during intermission, and we were hoping that you would be interested."

"These entr'actes," the letter continued, "are just as important and beloved as the plays."

And what was CringeFest? "...[A] series of original bad films, bad plays, and bad musicals [which] aren't actually bad, but are good and hilarious works that are: irreverent, politically incorrect, political satire and just plain naughty."

How could I say no?

It was clear that they'd wanted standup, but I had a different idea.....

A few weeks before, I did tech for Dalia Carella's Salon Performance, which included a hysterically funny bellydance number called Miss Manners Has a Meltdown.

YES. BELLYDANCE CAN BE FUNNY.

It has a delicious vocabulary of pops, locks, bumps and body bulges that can easily translate to slapstick.

And what better music for slapstick than Spike Jones?

Only a few days before getting the CringeFest email, I'd been listening to my daily Jones and Cocktails for Two -- the City Slickers' biggest hit -- made my inner-goofball bounce.

And I had the perfect costume -- the elegant, long, silver one I bought for the Egyptian Academy show: If Ginger Rogers bellydanced, she would have worn that costume.

So I show up for my first performance. No one has any idea what to expect. I give the booth my iPod and tell them to start the music when I drop my veil.

Clearly the music isn't Middle Eastern, but it's not comedic either -- yet!

Rather, it starts with a serious, 40's-style orchestral swell, and I danced accordingly, with grace, elegance and a beautiful silk fan, for a full 50 seconds into a final glissando -- which I milked like a cow in heat.

And then it takes off!!

I caught every bizarre sound effect with parts of my body that aren't supposed to move. And then I really got wild.

The audience went nuts! They cheered and laughed at the sheer insane novelty of it.

Sadly, I don't have a video, but fear not! Dalia has asked me to reprise it for her upcoming benefit, so stay tuned!!

May-June 2009 Events Archive

Friday, May 1st
Dancing and Emceeing in The Bellydance/Flamenco Show at
Lafayette Grill & Bar.
54 Franklin Street (3 block south of Canal), NYC
212-732-5600 call for table reservations!
A portion of proceeds will be donated to Long Island Cares.

Saturday, May 9th, 10pm
Doing Comedy and Dancing all Hot'n'Sexy-Like at The Creamsicles' Rock and Roll Variety Show
Ace of Clubs
9 Great Jones (btw Bwy & Laf), NYC
212-677-6963
Want to join the band and sing your favorite Rock & Roll Classic? Email the band at thecreamsicles@creamsicle-music.com and step up!
$5 (I think...)

Friday, May 15th, 7:30pm
Performing Comedy at The New York Comedy Club
241 E 24th Street, NYC
212-696-5233
$10 Cover
2-drink minimum

Saturday, May 16th, 12pm
Dancing with PURE
for The Dance Parade
Marching Down Broadway from 28th Street to University Place to St. Mark's to Tompkins Square Park, NYC
(See the parade route for details.)


Saturday, June 6th, 7:30pm
Dancing in Bellyqueen's Tamalyn Dallal Showcase at JeBon
Je'Bon Noodle House
15 St. Mark's Place, NYC
(212) 388-1313
$10 Cover/$5 Minimum

Saturday, June 27th, 9pm
Dancing at Babouche
2 Lincoln Place @ Fifth Ave
Brooklyn, NY
718-636-2100

Saturday, June 27th, 10:30pm
Performing Stand-Up Comedy at Sheba Mason's Comedy Show
Joe Franklin's Comedy Club @ Charley O's
713 Eighth Avenue & 45th Street, NYC
Tickets: 212-352-3101
866-811-4111(toll free)
Info: 646-351-2904
$10 Cover/$10 Minimum

A Little Goethe...

Over the past several weeks, I've been reading Robert Bly and Marion Woodman's The Maiden King (which I strongly recommend, though in some places Bly draws a few connections that don't quite gel to my mind, but the rest of it is very solid).

The book, and the folk tale on which is is based, deals with the trials one must undergo to unite with the Divine -- where the "Divine" is one's highest, most passionate calling -- represented in luminous goddess form as the Maiden King (she is a king, not a queen, because a queen implies the presence of a king; this woman is sovereign unto herself, the feminine that is not defined by the masculine).

But anyway... I can do an entry about the book when I finish it.

In the meantime, I was struck by a Goethe poem that Bly quotes by way of illustrating the "suffering" one must undergo -- which is not a suffering at all, but a necessary alchemical "burning" -- to slough away all that is extraneous to one's True Self. (I'll have to deal with the whole "true self" thing another time... it's too big an egg to fry in this entry).

This translation, also by Bly (who is best known, incidentally, for his excellent book Iron John), is found on page 99 of my edition, in the section "The Metaphor of the Hare," which represents a willing sacrifice to further the goal of greater life.

Holy Longing

Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,
Because the massman will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
What longs to be burned to death.

In the calm water of the love-nights,
Where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
A strange feeling comes over you
When you see the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught
In the obsession with darkness,
And a desire for higher love-making
Sweeps you upward.

Distance does not make you falter,
Now, arriving in magic, flying,
And, finally, insane for the light,
You are the butterfly and you are gone.

And so long as you haven't experienced
This: to die and so to grow,
You are only a troubled guest
On the dark earth.

Awesome, huh?

New York Comedy Club - 5-15-09

After a few months of doing bellydancer-related material, I saw a set by old pal and comedic inspiration, Marc Maron at the Cornelia Street Café, where he told the heartbreaking and hysterically funny story of "The Chair that Ruined His Marriage."

So I put together what I had first conceived as a 15-minute solo short about a recent heartbreak, that would be best presented in theatrical settings like Cheryl King's Stage Left series, Forbidden Kiss.

When I workshopped it, however, I found it had potential as stand-up, so I pared it down to a spare narrative, punched up the laugh lines and presented it to an unsuspecting audience at the NY Comedy Club.

Here is the result. Enjoy!!

Getting StickKy With It

I heard an interesting segment on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show a few days ago about a website called StickK, which seeks to provide its participants motiviation for change.

Dean Karlan, a Yale economics professor and co-founder of StickK, discussed "this innovative way to keep commitments" by, basically, "taking a contract out on yourself."

Mafia jokes aside, I can see how this might be effective, and the site is rife with testimonials to that effect.

But, seeing life in the complicated way that I do... and knowing how poorly any kind of "just do it" attitude works for me, I weighed in the following on the Leher segment's comments page:

Three stories:

(1) When a perpetually overweight friend joined Weight Watchers, his mother sneered that he'd fail. Within months he far exceeded his goal, proving at the very least he could stickK it to his mother. Six moths later, he gained it all back and more.

(2) I have also struggled with my weight and several years ago took up a challenge in my gym, NYHRC, for "the member who could improve fitness the most in 6 months." I won. Within a year, all the weight was back, and more.

(3) In 2005, I started bellydancing to heal three herniated lumbar discs. Three years later, my back was better but my weight was the same. I loved dancing so much, however, and found it helped me enjoy my body no matter what it looked like, that last year 20 pounds melted away with no significant change in diet or exercise.

A year later, the weight is still gone and I eat what I like.

The moral?

I think an incentive can work in the short-term to modify behaviors that are driven largely by habit.

But if the unhealthy behavior (such as overeating, addiction, etc.) is driven by deeper needs and compulsions, an incentive will not only fail in the long term, it may do more harm than good as a person may end up feeling worse for failing after having briefly succeded.

In my case, the "deeper need" was simply to feel happy with my body. Once that need was met, no behavior modification strategies were necessary.

World Exotica at Lafayette Grill

Bellydancer Tessarita and Flamenca La Mariposa brought together a fabulous array of dancers in styles ranging from Latin to Tribal to Egyptian Cabaret, and an impressive variety of fusions in between.

I emceed the evening, and danced a short set in the second half... whirling in through my favorite veil....



... with a little sword-balancing floorwork...



... and a zill-filled finale.