The bridge you see in the picture,( Where ever it lands on this page, I haven't quite got the hang of this blog thing yet) had it's 15 minute...more like 30 seconds of fame in the movie "Oh, Brother"
As I told you I write a column, "Christiansen's comments" for our local weekly newspaper the Hinds County Gazette... I will be posting them here after they appear in the paper.
June 28 2007 edition of the Hinds County Gazette.
I am shocked and distressed. Did you know that the presidential election is not until Next November 2008!!!?
I detached myself form the nightly news some years ago, in an effort to save what little bit of mind I may have left at the time. All of that bad news was worrying me, and breaking my heart.
But for some many weeks now, I once again began tuning in to watch the local news, hoping to see on the weatherman’s radar screen a patch of rain crossing over the Mississippi River to leave a bit rain on my parched lawn …and I have seen rain cross over the river to North of us and to South of us…It always seems to split right there at the river bridge in Vicksburg.
Looks as if I have missed very little…. murder, mugging, robberies in Jackson are still the headlines….And there is still yet another grand plan for renovating the King Edward Hotel in down town Jackson….pretty much where I left off years ago.
So anyway I said all of that to say this….I couldn’t help but see all of the politicking going on….The presidential debates being held here yonder and there. The debates coupled with all of the yard signs around Edwards, for counties candidates running for clerks, judges and sheriff. Well Brain put the two together and told me we were fixing to have us an election of the highest order.
I was watching C-Span over the weekend and something was said about the presidential election in 2008….at first I thought I was mistaken about what year it is…what with the lingering remnants of “Chemo” brain. (Chemo kills good cells as well as bad cells…the cells of the brain are not excluded, so your mind and memory can become quite fussy…it is supposed to go away over time.) I went to my desk and looked at the calendar I was right this is 2007…we have, what? 18 months of this to go. I don’t have to watch and won’t until September 2008.
But I want a candidate that has a strategy to fix the health care system …I was very fortunate, we had very good insurance, so my medical episode did not leave us in debt….but I am hearing more and more often horror stories, from people who go to work everyday, have insurance and still can not afford to go to the doctor because insurance pays 80 or 90 percent of the cost, which sound like a lot but considering the cost of care…having to pay 20% or even 10% out of pocket makes the cost of medical care prohibitive to already stretched budgets.
I know of a man who spent one day(not over night) in the hospital for tests, the bill was over $10,00…leaving him to pay 2,000 dollars for one day.…and as near as I could determine from conversations with the patient, the tests did not arrive at any real conclusions…the doctor is going to monitor him….
Another lady I know who through no fault of her own, has incurred medical expenses that she has to pay, until the other parties insurance kicks in. She was slow to seek treatment for that reason.
And if you have to insure yourselves… the cost of medical insurance is astronomical for healthy folks…they do not want to cover the unhealthy…. even the most mildly unhealthy.
A friend mine’s son has no insurance, because the premiums rose so high he could no longer afford them….Of course he will never be able to get insurance because of a preexisting condition.
Another friend…several years back, her insurance company left the state, leaving her without insurance. Looks to me like before insurers left the state, they would required to make arrangements for coverage of those they were leaving behind. … She is hoping to stay healthy. She is past 50, so it is just too costly for her to get health insurance.
I will be getting off my soap box now, going out to putter….hopefully in the rain.
Love to all
Call if you need me.
PS. Our old wooden hump back bridge is gone.
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