I try to avoid politics.  This post isn’t really about politics, though…it’s about common sense.

Now, I’m not against health care reform–there are, for example, far too many people going to the emergency room because they have the sniffles and don’t have insurance.  Setting something up to cut those costs makes sense.  What I don’t see is why that has to be fixed by something approaching a single-payer system, when a single-payer (or nearly so) system will make more problems than it solves because that payer will have too much of a say over how to cut costs.  I am uninsured, and if I get hit by a truck I’d rather be paying the bill off until I’m 157 if that’s what it takes for all that expensive critical stuff to be waiting for me so that I don’t have to wait for it.

Here’s how to do it.  I don’t expect Congress to come up with this or go for it because it’s too easy and requires no added infrastructure, but it would work.

Give doctors and medical clinics a tax deduction for each uninsured low-income person they give a free office to, with no limit so that they can actually work themselves down to zero tax liability for the year.  Likewise, when the doctors write a prescription or a list of needed medical supplies (things like dressings for a wound, for example), let pharmacies take a tax deduction for supplying those things.

I’m not saying this would fix everything.  However, hospitals will already write off a lot of other things for low income people, and if anything else needs fixed or smoothed out it’ll be obvious after we try this for a while–with more resources left for the complicated stuff since we didn’t waste all that on reinventing the wheel.

Actually…I can keep my foot from changing directions, but I have to really think about it.

August 12th is Adopt a Less Adoptable Pet Day.  Petfinder is encouraging everyone to adopt the pets that are less likely to find homes, for reasons like health issues, being an “undesirable” breed, or just being a black cat. Read more on their site.

Both of my cats are “unadoptables” because they were feral as kittens therefore less socialized to humans, and also had health issues (crazy bad ringworm) when I got them.  They wouldn’t have stood a chance in a shelter and even now probably wouldn’t.

If you have an opening in your feline lineup, please consider heading to a shelter and giving a cat a home.

You can also help shelter cats by answering trivia questions at FreeKibbleKat.com.

Also, remember to have your pets spayed or neutered, especially spayed.  Kittens are fluffy little miracles, but two years can turn a household of one male and two female cats into a madhouse of 70.  There are just not enough good homes!  If you want to be able to have more cats, there’s still no need to make them–you can go to a shelter, they have more than they know what to do with.  Most shelters have to euthanize hundreds or even thousands of those fluffy little miracles every year just to make room because more keep coming in.  Those kittens need less competition for shelter space, and they need heroes to take them home.

http://blogs.catster.com/the-cats-meow-a-cat-and-kitten-blog/thursday-13-thirteen-cute-spooning-cats/2009/08/05/

A sample: