Grandma and Global Warming

Grandma and Global Warming
It was a bad day for Grampa and Grandma today, as reported in our local newspaper, the CDT. First, the CDT picked up an Associated Press article by Seewer and Mohajer that examined how state cuts in Medicaid services for Home health care—which the states might be able to afford—are being cut, so that more and more seniors will be forced into Nursing Homes—which almost no one can afford. Home health benefits are easy to cut because they are not mandated by Federal law and the cash strapped states will do that rather than tax (A RESPECTFUL HUSH PLEASE) the job creators. A a consequence of this, the states will have to pay much more, but not until much later—say November.
G and G were then treated to a truly inane article by David Brooks entitled, “Fiscal crisis driven by inability to face death” in which he argues, by cherry picking the available data, that medicine is doing nothing much to extend life or to provide a less awful death, and people (and as a consequence the nation) —would be better off not taking their medicine. The good news is that we could retain the pain part of dying, as opposed to say promoting assisted suicide, as the pain part is most important to social conservatives.
Logically, this brings us to the problem of global warming—which the right wing in Congress is finally beginning to worry about. After all, their fallback plan for dealing with the aged was to transport them to an iceberg and leave them. In fact, they envisioned that the private “transport to the iceberg industry” would be booming as of 2020. Studies of how many gramps and grannies can be squeezed into a 747—based on the recent experience of the airlines—were already underway. Now, they’ve discovered the ice may not be there when they need it most. Who knew? It makes you feel sort of sorry for them, doesn’t it? It’s not easy being anti-green.