Eternal Bioterrorism: The Only Justifiable War

[Occulus]

"We have to fight them there, so we don't fight them here."

We've heard this over and over again for years. It is the mantra of the republican party, those glorious champions of freedom and democracy. They rant and rave about chemical and biological weapons as if we're all about to die of some horrible inflicted plague.

It is tiring, yes, but there's already bioterrorism going on. No, not weaponized. I'm talking about human health, bacteria, and illness.

At the moment, I'm sitting here suffering the effects of a badly infected wisdom tooth. I'm scheduled to have it removed- on October 25th!- and will be calling to get it moved up as soon as I'm done writing here. But it made me ponder, in my Vicondined-out haze I'm in, on the hypocrisy of the republican party.

We are already fighting wars, each and every one of us. Our immune systems regularly and efficiently demolish their enemies, with precision and usually total lethality. Unfortunately, when they fail, our immune systems fail miserably, and with sometimes fatal consequences.

Do the Republicans adequately fund those wars, by enabling across-the-board access to medical and dental care for the public fighting those wars every day? Obviously not. In fact, those are wars they don't want to adequately fund.

I'm miserable right now, because I don't have dental insurance. I have to wait for a long time to get treated, most likely for the same reason. My friend, Nika, who lives two floors up from me, went to the same office I'm scheduled to go to and got all four of her wisdom teeth removed and got it done in less than a week. She has dental insurance from her employer; I (a postal worker) do not.

I don't have dental insurance because the plan I was on through our union died. The new plan requires six months of payment before it can be used at all- a scam in any other context. I do have medical, but my problem "isn't medical"- an arbitrary distinction employed to guarantee business for the dental profession even in cases of a serious nature, such as an abscessed or impacted, infected, and decaying wisdom tooth.

Back to my point. I'm fighting a war at the moment- a very personal and possibly deadly war- and I utterly lack the funding and access to services I require to let my body finish the job of healing. The Republicans, in fact, fight that funding tooth (ha!) and nail.

Any person who believes that health care should not be publicly funded ought to be cast out of society. It's a truth that Chavez gave voice to: good health is not something to be bought and sold. We should be demanding loudly and with serious financial consequences to the parties involved- intentional consequences- that we deserve adequate and affordable health care, whether we are insured or not.

Until that happens, the uninsured should stop paying for health care, period. Our health- my health- is too precious to be anything less than ruthless to defend. Our immune systems already behave that way- so why isn't it acceptable for us to do the same?

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. In my experience

dental insurance is a scam. I finally gave up and pay privately. It hurts.

I agree with your post.

[BlueEyedSon]

3. Depends on your plan.

[Occulus]

4. I just called, and it's getting done TOMORROW.

Thank God. I'm in pain and it just needs to stop.

[rucky]

5. Great News!...and a nice post.

Even if it's soon to be outdated for you personally, it's a MAJOR #1 problem that we don't talk about enough here on the DU.

[Occulus]

6. I'll never question people with dental pain ever again.

I'll be giving those people with such problems my complete understanding and sympathy from now on (not that I didn't before).

I'm thinking the most common reason people have bad teeth is because of a lack of money to care for them rather than bad personal habits. Perhaps in some cases (people who can't brush, due to an existing dental condition, for example), bad teeth are a direct consequence of bad personal habits, but I'm thinking in many it's simply a lack of adequate and affordable care in the first place.

It really pisses me off that some dentists and oral surgeons are wealthy enough to take Friday off. There are thousands of people in my area with bad, decaying, crooked, and painful teeth who could benefit from their services if only they would lower their prices for the uninsured to what could be affordable for the uninsured.

Considering that things like what I'm going through right now have been known to be fatal, it's inexcusable for this to be going on.

[BlueEyedSon]

2. They don't care about bioterror or al Qaeda, that's just propaganda to

scare people & score votes. It is notoriously difficult to weaponize and deploy biological agents.

The only true WMD is nukes. Conflating that with bio & chem allowed the neocons to use the term ("WMD") more freely, in cases that are really inappropriate (i.e. to LIE).