I know, huge understatement, right?

Posted my first article yesterday on Examiner, under the heading “teen issues” and subbed with “juvenile justice”. The article was entitled, “When should a juvenile be certified to stand trial as an adult?”

The basic premise: in most areas, juveniles are considered adults at age 18; the difference between a crime and a status offense; a very brief description of juvenile facilities. The article went on to say that the judge must consider all aspects of the crime(s) committed, the demeanor of said juvenile, and that, often, a kid is merely slapped on the wrist and returns, over and over, to the court.

Simple, basic, an overview; furthermore, it wasn’t intended to be a news article or an academic treatise, nor was it intended to be a commentary on others’ work. And, in no way was it an endorsement of the current juvenile system – in fact, quite the opposite.

I was very excited to see that there were seven new comments!

Six of them were from someone who used the name “alawyer”. Six. A six-part comment, if you will. Now, my article was about 750 words; his total commentary was over 1000. Unbelievable.

Aside from his username, alawyer, he made ridiculous statements, such as: Robin doesn’t know much about this topic, she gets her information from others who believe the system works; he talked about New York, D.C., and other countries – did I mention this is a location-specific site, which in this case is my location? Certainly not the East Coast or foreign justice systems.

He also apparently considers the Examiner to be a site where writers merely read the work and reports of others and comment on those alone; he obviously has no clue. He stated that he spends a lot of time blogging, and surfing the ‘Net. I wonder when he has time to see clients, or work on their behalf….

Of course, anyone online can call themselves whatever they wish: lawyer, doctor, accountant, and so forth. Hardly anyone will stalk them to find the truth, which is likely what he’s banking on; he can’t spell, punctuate, or capitalize very well either. Especially for one supposedly as well-educated as an attorney.

Ah, well, I suppose there are nutjobs anywhere you care to look, although the Internet seems to be a haven. Likely this guy lives in his parents’ basement and has “researched” a few things that pique his interest from time to time; likely he isn’t a lawyer, or much of anything else. Come to think of it, his commentary reads more like that of a high schooler, trying to be profound and appear adult-like and, naturally, failing miserably.

I saw a comment today in a newspaper about health insurance and choices; the first individual stated that the rich are being taxed too much, and that poor people need to get their own health insurance; the second individual said that poor people have choices to buy beer, cigarettes, and lottery tickets or essentials like health insurance.

Allow me to reflect a bit on this seeming dilemma:

Once upon a time, if a person got sick, they went to the doctor; they may have even paid him with a chicken or two. They got well, or they died. Then medicine became a business; large university opened medical schools, students learned more about the human body and health and illness and injury. Doctors began to insist upon payment in the form of cash versus livestock or produce.

No problem. It might have been hard to trade a cow for a train ticket.

Then insurance companies were invented. Did you know that agents used to go door-to-door, every week, collecting premiums? Just like Jehovah’s Witnesses. That should have been our first clue.

Healthcare costs have been rising ever since.

The insurance racket – and yes, it IS a racket – has taken on a life of its own. Now, first you went to the doctor and paid a chicken, and died or got well; then, you went to the doctor and paid a couple dollars and your chances of getting well probably increased.

Today, regardless of how much you pay, you’re probably going to get well; not well-er, just well. But at what cost? In 1930, the average income was $1970 per year, and folks paid maybe $1 a week for insurance, or about 3% of their cash. Let’s assume that nowadays folks earn $1970 a month; but they might pay $600 a month for health insurance – that’s 30% of their income. Talk about inflation….

I daresay that everyone could probably afford the 3%, or about $60, but then all those executives would have to forgo their Bentleys and maid service. And hey, those poor people could also afford to keep buying their beer and cigarettes and lottery tickets.

As I’ve said before, we’ve had health insurance – we do now, in fact – and we’ve been without. In almost every situation, we haven’t needed the insurance. We’ve simply paid, the times we did carry it, around $700 a month or $8400 for the year; we actually used medical services, one year, to the tune of maybe $1000. In essence, we paid eight times the cost of our healthcare to the insurance company.

A racket, indeed.

Here’s the catch, though: you can’t “shop around” because all the inclusions, exclusions, percentages, and amounts are at least as confusing as a tax form. And, since the American public has had it drilled into their collective heads that we MUST have insurance, we MUST do everything the doctor says, then we obviously MUST be idiots.

Because every “retailer”, i.e., the insurance companies, can set their own prices, the cost of health has skyrocketed from a lowly chicken to a few hundred dollars for a simple office call. The only way to lower prices is for consumers to take charge, and shop at the local WM of healthcare.

Think about this: does your doctor advertise where he went to med school? Probably. Does he also have his class rank listed? Doubtful. Most people pay these prices whether their doctor was the top of his class, or just the class clown. What other industry leaves quality at the door?

As for poor people buying beer, cigarettes, and lottery tickets – sure, they do that. But they’d don’t usually have a housekeeper, or fly off to the Bahamas every year for a couple weeks, or have to flip a coin to decide which luxury car to drive on a particular day. Everyone makes choices, they just need to be able to actually have a choice.