Yesterday I brought food to the local shelter.  Without getting out of the car I handed bags of canned goods out the car window  It is time to give back.  As homeless volunteers grabbed the bags of non perishable food I wondered what they had to be thankful for this year.  I know what it is like to be hungry but these two elderly veterans probably knew more about hunger than I will ever know.  There were no cars behind me so I asked one of them if he had been to Viet Nam.  He said he sure had been in Viet Nam and it made him thankful for being on the streets of Houston where people came out of their homes to care for destitute people like him.  He said he did not have much materially to be thankful for but he was going to be cooking a wonderful meal on Thanksgiving for many others that even had less than he had.  He then rushed off to get the bags I dropped off into the shelter waving as he disappeared. 

I have been asking people all week what they had to be thankful for this year.  I have tried to keep the conversation short but some people are hungry to tell their life story or an aspect of their history that made a mark on them.  I won’t go into the life stories but instead give a brief description of their comments.

At the bay one fellow with his surfboard said he was thankful for the wind we have had at the bay this last year.  He was young and had tattoos and clear skin.  He seemed not to have many marks in his story yet.  Another one at the bay said she was grateful there were no hurricanes or tropical storms this year that forced her family out of their home.  She went on to talk about the damage that hurricane Ike bestowed on them.  I got in my car and went further down the bay to get some pictures of turtles and pelicans.  I noticed that an elderly may was standing looking at his destroyed property on the water.  He is the same man I talked to after Ike came through and he at that time had told me that his daughter was missing.  At that time he had his teenage grandchild with him.  I stopped and chatted with him again.  He did not remember me and said a lot of people came over after Ike to chat with him and give their condolences.  HIs grandchild now lives with one of his sons and still goes to the same school she attended before her mother went missing in Ike.  He said he goes to the bay almost daily to just remember.  I could not bring myself to ask him what he was thankful for this Thanksgiving but he then blurted out that God has been with him everyday of his life and that makes it possible to keep going on and doing the right things for the people left in his life.  Over the last year I have seen him standing there in the same spot many times and it gives me comfort to hear what he is thinking about when he stands there.

As I left I was thinking about “doing the right thing for the people in our lives”  and it seemed so simple but that is what we do everyday of our lives.  Many times in the past year I have felt resentful that I was rarely acknowledged for doing the right things for my oldest daughter and grandchildren. I remembered that I was told many times in AA meetings that gratitude is an attitude that will get us through almost anything and to keep it simple.  To not get worked up about the events in the world and to keep focused on what in my life is “doing the right things” so that when I go to bed at night I can fall peacefully asleep.  The third time I went to treatment for my addiction, many years ago, they would not allow me to read the newspaper or watch the TV in the day room.  I was to no longer focus on those external things that I could do next to nothing about and instead focus on “doing the right things to remain drug free and connected with the important people in my life”. Talking to that old man brought me back to that time when I first learned that lesson.  It also brought me back to what I was thankful for in my life. 

I am thankful for the fact that I need to cook a huge meal for a group of people and that it will turn out wonderful.  I am thankful for having not only family but friends who have stuck with me no matter what.  That was brought home to me when my old boss sent me a note and I talked to her.  After I talked to her she invited me to come for Christmas.  We have somehow been connected since 1977.  When I came to Houston I got another friend and she and I have worked together almost daily since 1983.  When I moved to this neighborhood I decided I needed a friend that was not connected to work and the first person I met has been a friend since 1989. When I decide I need a friend one is always provided and they are friends for life.  That is far more than others have.  

Not only do I have friends but I have family. In the last year my oldest daughter came to her senses and got rid of the boyfriend she had brought into her home to live with her and her kids.  She decided to go back to school  and her oldest daughter signed up for all AP courses at her high school.  Now she will begin college two years early next year.  She will do this while still in high school but it gives her focus in her life.  She was able to set her goals and she is doing the right things at the age of 15 to achieve them.  Even though she has dyed her hair and seems like an alien to me much of the time. she is doing the right things and doing them her way.  12 is healthy and doing fair in school.  She is also an honor student but gets lazy about homework.  Her sister was at that age also so she will get through this stage.  My son-in-law remains sober after his treatment that he left early.  He has refused to talk to me or look at me since he got back from treatment and yesterday was forced to do both.  I had thought he was angry but instead he was full of shame for his binge and the damage it did to his children.  We talked and I could not take away his shame and guilt.  I told him to take the worst shameful moment and wrap it in an envelope to keep in his mind at all times.  Next time he feels like taking another drink he needs to open the envelope and read the documentation of the incident completely before he decides if the next drink is really worth it.  I told him that he still has 12 and that 15 might be back eventually but right now she has moved on with her life and is to fearful of him and her well being with him.  I told him to stay sober and not put the same marks on 12 that he put on 15.  I know that sounds angry and hard but he has to hear it.  I was grateful that I was able to talk to him and give him that message. 

After he left my youngest daughter called from Georgia and tried to figure out how I could be with them during the Christmas holidays.  We might work it out but I also am invited to be with two friends in different states, I still have my daughter in Houston and her two kids and I felt grateful that I had this problem of having so many loving people around me that they all wanted me to be with them on Christmas.  I have tried to “do the right things” and now as I sit back I see that the crop I grew is solid and strong.  So this holiday season I will feel gratitude for all that I have and quit wishing for more material things.

Now I need to start my pumpkin pies since Thanksgiving dinner is only 30 hours away and there is a lot of cooking to be done.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you out there and I hope you have gratitude in your hearts this season.  Throw away the newspaper and turn off the TV.. 

Pictures:  I am grateful that I have a front door to hang a wreath on and I did find that turtle out there…

It has been raining here and turned cold.  Well by cold I mean it is 55 degrees outside.  I am such a wimp that the heat is on.  I have been lazy all day and the only thing I accomplished was to get a new battery for the car and put it in my car.  My Honda just turned over 201,000 miles so I don’t know how many more years it will keep truckin.  Every other car I have owned was lucky to get 100,000.  At that time they always started their death walk.  Not the Honda. 

Something unusual happened on Friday.  I got a note in the mail from my old boss Mary Jane.  I worked for Mary Jane for about 4 years off and on.  At one point I left Ashland and moved back to Superior but after the demise of my marriage I went right back to Ashland.  She and I left that treatment center at about the same time.  She went to Hazelden Hanley in Florida and I went to the corporate offices of Lifemark which in the early 80’s was a huge healthcare conglomerate and later merged with AMI or American Medical International. 

After I read the note I called her and we both updated each other on our activities in the last 25 years.  She lives in a small town of about 1,300 people and the city itself is almost 3 square miles where as Houston is 650 square miles.  It is the very tip of eastern and far northern Minnesota.  It is surrounded by Lake Superior on two sides.  It would be a great place to live if you like smelt and lots of cold and snow.

Significant people in my life live around there.  My ex-husband is very close to that location and so is my youngest sister.  I have never been there but I might have to go check it out when they have their 4 month summer which is not really summer but more like fall weather. 

Anyhow we updated each other on what has been going on in our lives for the last 25 years.  I clearly remember the last time we talked and I believed it was in 1985.  I remember the exact location of the office I was in and at that time I was running a locked adolescent psychiatric and chemical dependency treatment center.  I remember because we had an admission at the same time and it was a 14 year old boy brought in by his minister father and mother.  The boy was tied up in duct tape and in the trunk of their car.  They wanted us to “FIX” their boy who had peeked in his neighbors window.  The neighbor was like 80 some years old.  I don’t know if we ever fixed the kid but we did work on fixing that family.  So anyway I remember talking to Mary Jane as this ruckus was happening outside of my office. 

That job was crazy but fun.  Working with adolescents is a real challenge.  At Christmas that year I got a call from the unit and it was a nurse trying to talk to me with her mouth duct taped shut.  One of the kids was able to get out of the quiet room and he tied up the nurse on duty but couldn’t get out of the locked unit.  This was Christmas Eve and I had my kids waiting for Santa to arrive.  I had to make an emergency visit to the center with the police and then spent the rest of the night talking to the EAP who placed the kid with us.  I wanted the kid moved to another one of our locked facilities on Christmas before my nurse quit.  Of course by then we had the kid under control and I had called in extra staff to monitor him.  I clearly remember being awakened by the EAP’s phone call at 3 in the morning.  I don’t know if I got any sleep that night. 

So anyway I am glad my old boss Mary Jane has found me.  I hope to see her before we die.  We are both getting pretty old.  She older than me… 

The picture is some shelters they are building for homeless.  They sell for $1,500 each.  I don’t think I will be buying one anytime soon but in my 30 foot shed I am finishing for the kids they want lofts in it for bed space.  The ceilings are very high and this little house gave me a good idea on how to put in bunk lofts for the kids without taking up a lot of space to do it.  I will put a ladder at each end of each loft and that will help support the weight of the lofts.  There is enough room in the shed for many lofts but I will build in 4 of them so their friends can bunk out with them.  Enough for now….Hope you are all well.

This reel is now 35 years old and in good shape. I took a couple pics of it.   It was made in Sweden and I or my husband must have bought it after our second child was born in Saint Cloud, Minnesota.  It was made before we started putting plastic parts on fishing reels.  The only thing not made of aluminum and steel is the handle grips that are black and wooden.  The line on it feels like maybe 17 pound test line.  It is stiff line and I don’t like fishing with stiff line so maybe my husband used it.  Each reel has an ideal weight of line and I will have to research what the ideal weight line is for this vintage reel.  I checked it on Ebay and the price right now is $200 for one in such good shape.  That one was missing the seal that mine has.  It looks like a crown and it must be glued on somehow.  Maybe it is welded.  Most likely welded.  It is a reel for big fish like muskie.  I don’t remember using this reel so it may have been my ex-husbands reel.  I did not do that much muskie fishing back then but he used to TRY to catch muskie. 

We may have lived in Saint Cloud then but most likely we had already moved to Bayfield Wisconsin. 

The Garcia reel was made in Sweden.  I will cover another of my reels tomorrow unless I find something to complain about….

Does anyone remember the Ugly Stick fishing pole that came out in the early 70’s.  Graphite's came out in the 60’s and they were the rod to own.  I still have a vintage graphite rod.  Union Carbide subsidized the development of the graphite rods and graphite golf clubs.  Then came the Ugly Sticks that outperformed anything ever created.  The graphite's were wood, fiberglass and graphite.  Graphite was at the time the most expensive rod ever developed.  I think Shakespeare put them out and then there were some patent battles as I recall. 

The Ugly Stick was created by mistake.  The engineers were testing strength with the graphite rods.  They blended fiberglass and graphite together and went home for the night.  The next day they tested what they had and it was far stronger than what had been selling as a graphite rod.   The brought the rod to a company meeting that afternoon and were laughe d out of the meeting because what they created was ugly.  It was a white stick and the pigment showed through.

In spite of this Shakespeare patented the ugly rod and at an annual fishing show hung heavy items from the rod.  It was a contest and the ugly stick beat out every other rod.  Even the French and Italian made very expensive rods. 

You can still get Shakespeare Ugly Sticks that cost anywhere from $40 to $250. In fact I believe they are probably still the best selling rod out there.  We just have not found a way to improve on the Ugly Stick in all these years.  We all still use graphite rods mixed with fiberglass.  I am interested in rods but mostly I am interested in reels.  I have a lot of reels and some of them are in pretty bad shape. 

The problem is that salt water tears everything up and then add throwing stuff on top of them in the trunk and now you have the picture.   I brought my ugly sticks and fiberglass rods to Texas with me and of course my old reels.  I have a vintage Johnson 17 tangle free which I had bought to replace my Johnson Century that I began using as a child in the 50’s.  You can’t really find a 17 tangle free anymore.  Johnson still makes the Century and they continue to be a top seller.  I might even get one for old times sake and because they are great reels.

The other reel I am working on cleaning today is the Daiwa Silvercast 208 RL.  It is in real good working order but at saome point I will get the Goldcast.  I read that the Goldcast is even better.  In either case you will have a hard time tangling the lines on these reels.  They are close faced reels but I still prefer an open faced reel.  I have one in the car and I still have my fathers reel.  Now he has been dead since 1971 so you know that is real old.  I have no idea when he got it but I am sure it was in the 50’s or 60’s.  It is in the shed so I will get it out tomorrow to take a better look.  In fact I will continue this tomorrow when I have a chance to get a good look at all my reels…

BTW I caught 3 sand trout's on Sunday.  Everyone was snagging sand trout.

Just another fishing lesson... 

Friday and Saturday nights are the worst.  Last night my daughters house had 9 teenagers in it overnight.  My daughter was out on a date and I ended up supervising all those kids.  There were 3 extra cars in the driveway and one had a flat tire.  Luckily they were all girls.  At 11:30 a man showed up with his foreign exchange student who apparently had been invited.  He wanted to make sure there were no boys, drugs, alcohol, and nobody was piercing or cutting themselves.  I told him he had pretty much covered the field and nobody was doing that.  He took a look at the house and the kids and then asked if I was going to be there the entire time so they were not left unattended.  I reassured him that I would and after he drove out of the driveway I handed over $40 for pizza and went to my house where I went to sleep.  When I woke this morning I found that 12 had hid her purse in my house. 

All these kids were part of the drama club at the high school and had just finished a performance.  They have another one tonight and today they are judging talent contests in local middle schools.  They showed up at my house at 7:30 this morning for breakfast.  It is a tradition that I always make the morning meal.  They gulped down half a gallon of Sunny D,a quart of milk, a pound of bacon, 18 scrambled eggs, and 12 pancakes.  A few extra kids showed up for breakfast and I don’t know if the extras actually slept at my daughters or if they just dropped in to go with the other drama queens and have a bite to eat. 

Finally everything is settling down again.  It made the dogs tired and they are passed out in my house.  I am sneaking out while the sneaking is good.  Been wanting to go fishing and rain is coming.  It is now or never….  Later

  I have been sober and drug free 38 years today.  I was very lucky and used alcohol and many drugs for only 10 years.  I was 24 when I found recovery.  I had already been in treatment two times and had actually completed the 30 day program in a hospital once.  The third time I stayed only a few days until I got the drugs out of my system.  I went straight to an AA meeting.  For the next year I practically lived at that AA clubhouse.  I was there almost every day and maybe everyday.  I brought my three year old with me many of those days.  I seriously wanted to remain drug free.  I had frequent dreams of getting high but I never jumped out of bed again to rush out to get high. 

I lived in St. Cloud, Minnesota and was terrified about going into a bar or being around any kind of a drug. Near the end of that first year my family had a get together.  All of us kids wanted to get together at the lake cabin my parents owned.  I have four brothers and sisters and we all arrived on a Friday evening in big mosquito and bear country.  It was near Akin, Minnesota and my father always said if we spit across the lake we would be in Canada. I now know we were pretty far from Canada but as kids we always believed him.   All my siblings stayed sober for the weekend but then they were not addicts like me.  On Sunday we were out on my parents pontoon boat just motoring around fishing when a speed boat came zooming by.  They were zig zagging and screaming.  It was a bunch of teenagers throwing empty Hamm’s beer cans in the lake pretty fast.  Our neighbors were a kind elderly couple and they were sitting on the lake by their cottage in a small row boat.  They always did that in the evenings. 

Wrong place, wrong time.  The speed boat never saw them and cut their row boat in half.  We were sitting fishing not far from them.  They had been asking us how many we got, etc.  After they were sliced in half my youngest brother was by the motor.  He frantically tried to start the motor and pulled the cord right out of the motor.  He had a lot of adrenalin pumping.  My other brother and I were always the strongest swimmers and both of us hit the water.  I don’t know how but we got the wife ashore.  The husband was still able to swim.  The wife had a huge streak of red in the water.  Brother ran and started his car and they put her in the backseat.  We had no phone service out in the country and I jumped in my car.  Brother screamed at me when they stopped at a bar.  He wanted me to go inside and get more help and call an ambulance. 

I know this sounds crazy but I would not go in the bar.  I was terrified of entering a bar.  Instead he had to go in and I grabbed extra towels in my car and we tried to slow down her bleeding.  Her spleen was hanging out and I knew she was not going to make it.  I am sure her husband also knew and by now she was unconscious. (actually there was not much blood flowing anymore because she had probably already bled out-she was dead not unconcious) It would take to long so brother came running back and jumped in the car and drove like a madman to a hospital.  I followed behind but did not drive near as fast as he drove. 

 The hospital pronounced her dead and I can remember sitting next to husband in the waiting area.  Brother was sobbing but hubby was just in shock.  Even after they came out and said that she died hubby was still praying that she would make it.  We prayed right along with him and finally he gave that up.  Hubby wanted to go back to his cabin but instead I was able to get a phone number out of him for a son.  Brother and I sat with the in shock man until after midnight.  His family was racing out of Minneapolis to be there.  There were a lot of tears and chaos after all the children arrived and I don’t know how many times we explained what happened. 

It was a strong reminder to me about the dangers of drugs and alcohol.  I was fortunate in that my children did not become drug addicts or alcoholics.  Many times the children of an addict become addicts.  Instead my oldest became co-dependent and married an alcoholic who she denied was an alcoholic for 10 years.  They are now divorced for many years and he went to treatment about a month ago but would not stay and went back home. 

12 wants to go to his house for the weekend and her mother will not let her.  She wants to have a dad and he called and told her that “they” said it would be good for his recovery if she stayed at his house on weekends. 12 wants to do anything possible to support his “recovery”.

Before going to treatment 15 had been in the car with him and he parked on a bridge overpass.  He was drunk and had tried to maneuver the car to put it in drive, hit the accelerator and land in the river below them.  15 was totally freaked out but kept her wits about her.  He was flooring his new beamer but could not get it in drive for some reason.  It was a clutch car and she thought that the clutch had something to do with it.  (but of course the clutch has nothing to do with that)  Since he could not get it in drive she convinced him that she could do it and they traded places in the car.  He fell on the pavement trying to get back into the passenger side door and she learned how to shift that night as she got the car turned around ( that is a miracle, she had never driven a car she had to shift and use a clutch at the same time and she did it without instructions)   He had thrown her cell phone out the window before he began his suicide/homicide attempt.  She just left him passed out in the car until the police showed up with her mother.  Another motorist sat with her and tried to settle her down while she waited for her mother.  She fell apart and was shaking uncontrollable as she told her story.  When the police arrived they could not charge him with yet another DWI since he was in the passenger seat and the car was not running.  My daughter refused to take him home and left him there in his car.  They had to bring him for public intoxication and tow his car.

15 says she will never be alone with her dad again no matter how long he says he is sober and she was freaking out that 12 was planning on going to his house this weekend.  15 has not been the same since and is now in therapy to try to be able to sleep a full night without having bad dreams.  Sometimes I lay in her bed and tell her Indian stories until she falls asleep.  I then sneak back to my house. 

So on my 38 year anniversary date I sat at the bay with my grandchildren.  As we were walking back to the house there were 4 deer in a neighbors yard.  I had my camera and took pictures.  I told them the story of the Deer after I got the pictures:

One day Fawn heard Great Spirit calling to her.  Great Spirit was on the top of Sacred Mountain.  Fawn immediately ran towards Sacred Mountain but found a demon guarding the mountain.  The demon was trying to keep all the beings from connecting with Great Spirit.  The demon knew he would gain in strength if he could keep Fawn from connecting to Great Spirit.  If the demon gained power over Fawn he could scare her off the path.

When Fawn saw demon she was not afraid but curious.  Demon was as ugly and disfigured as could be but even though demon was breathing fire and made disgusting sounds Fawn was not afraid.  She asked demon to please allow her to pass saying she was on her way to see Great Spirit.  Demon became even more ferocious but Fawn stood her ground and her eyes showed love and compassion for even a demon. The demon was astounded by Fawn’s courage and no matter how hard he tried Fawn continued to state her intent to see Great Spirit.  To the demons dismay his rock hard hating heart began to melt. He shook and his whole body shrunk down to the size of a walnut.  Fawn continued her journey to Great Spirit and is to this day known for her bravery and gentleness and for clearing the way for all beings to go to Great Spirit without having to fight off the demon on their way. If they stray from the path the demon will be waiting for them. 

The deer represents the need for all of us to find the gentleness of spirit that can heal all wounds and tells us to stop pushing so hard trying to change others and be our own gentle selves.  Deer teach us to be  as warm and caring as a gentle breeze and forgive those around us that have strayed off the path.  Stand our ground and don’t stray off the path with them but also do not condemn or judge those struggling with a demon. To stay on our own path, center ourselves, focus on serenity and Great Spirit will help guide us up the mountain. 

As we were talking about this story the deer did not get up to run away and we were amazingly able to walk very close to these wild deer.  15 coughed and the deer finally wandered off. I was unable to get all the deer together because by then we were to close and I only had a zoom lens with me.  I also got a snowy white egret at the bay.  I liked it because you can see a mirror image in the water.  The kids asked the significance of the mirror image and all I said was “you are another me as I am another you”.  They will think on that one a long time.  Actually it meant that the water was calm and Grandfather was getting low in the sky and allowing Grandmother Moon to take over for the next shift.  When they come back with their complicated explanations of the mirror image i will tell them about the calm water, Grandfather Sun trying to go to bed for the night and Grandmother Moon clocking in. 

15 has had her hair dyed pitch black.  I asked her if she is trying to look like and Indian and she said no she wants to look like a vampire.  She said if I believe in miracles, ghosts and aliens then I surely should believe in vampires.  These kids now a days are really into vampires but she played a vampire in the school play.  I guess it went to her head.  Well that’s it for now and I hope you are all fine out there…

http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html

I love this guy!

From the Survival+ point of view, all the ideological positions on "healthcare" which are being sold like commodities are laughably detached from reality. "Healthcare reform" has nothing to do with either socialism or capitalism. Socialism is the Veterans Administration system (owned lock, stock and barrel by the government and run by the government) which offers remarkably cost-effective if basic care to millions of vets, and capitalism is cash-only clinics like those offered in Mexico, India and Thailand and in some Wal-Mart walk-in clinics.

The entire "healthcare reform" enterprise is not about providing care to all--that is the sales pitch. It is about milking the entire populace so more of the national income is transferred to the "healthcare" cartels and State (central government) Elites.

Here are the three key realities which are not addressed by "healthcare reform":

1. The "healthcare" cartel (and thus its partner the State) is not interested in health because health is horribly unprofitable. People who eat well and are mentally and physically fit have no need for costly procedures, treatments, tests and pharmaceuticals, hence they cannot generate revenues or profits.

Managing diseases is what's profitable, so the system is oriented not at prevention or nurturing health but at enabling chronic disease which is very profitably managed with pharmaceutcals, surgeries, etc.

2. Once the connection between service and customer is broken and the money to pay for all products and services is printed or borrowed in essentially unlimited quantities, ontologically (inherently) there are no possible price controls. This is why an elderly gent like my friend's father can enter the hospital with a non-life threating issue (gallstone), receive treatment which didn't really resolve his health issue and then Medicare is billed $120,000 for one week of "care" regardless of the efficacy.

When the service is "free" (that is, payment is borrowed/printed in unlimited quantities), then the cost of care will necessarily push up to the ultimate limit of the system's ability to pay. Medicare and Medicaid already exceed the Pentagon's budget, and they are growing three times faster than the long-term trend rate of the U.S. economy.

3. There is no "fair" way to ration care; the U.S. simply rations it by essentially random "legal lottery" payouts/jackpots/penalties and other regulatory means. The bottom line is "healthcare for all" without limits is unaffordable everywhere--it is simply more unaffordable in the U.S. system. The wealthy in rationed-care systems simply opt out and go buy "unrationed care" elsewhere, cash on the barrelhead.

The dirty little secret of supposedly "model" State healthcare plans in Europe and Japan is that they are running up against the limits of what those economies can afford. If you disagree, go ask the State finance ministries of France, the U.K., Germany and Japan for their 10 and 20-year projections of national healthcare costs.

No nation can increase healthcare spending 6% while its underlying economy grows 2%. In a mere 8 years, healthcare costs will rise over 50% while the GDP will rise (at best) 15-20%. That is the essence of unsustainability.

Medical Care Prices Are Rising Faster Than Overall Inflation (BusinessWeek)

The U.S. spent an estimated $2.4 trillion on health care in 2008, about 16.5% of gross domestic product and a 6% increase from a year earlier. Medical care prices are rising faster than overall inflation, and the burden on consumers continues to grow.

When everything is "free to all" then technologies and medications quickly reach marginal returns: yes, this drug is only effective in 15% of the case, and yes, it costs $10,000 a month, and might actually hurt some patients; but since the State is paying for everything, why not give it to everyone who might be helped? And if it's restricted, then isn't that rationed?

The "healthcare" cartels' goal is to carve off a greater share of national income for themselves. This isn't capitalism; it's monopoly capital-crony capitalism, the very opposite of free-market capitalism. The State's political class is a willing partner in this transfer of wealth to Elites because it welcomes the hundreds of millions of dollars in donations offered up by tort attorneys, Big Pharma, and all the other players milking the "healthcare" system for billions.

So who ultimately pays for "free" "sickcare"? The productive middle class and working poor. Healthcare which doesn't actually improve health but simply profitably manages chronic illnesses is in essence a stupendous tax on the productive class of the nation. The healthcare cartels are delighted that "healthcare" has climbed from 6% of GDP to 17%, and they will be delighted to see it rise to 20%, then 25% and 30%, until at some point it bankrupts the nation, as it most certainly will for the above reasons.

Until the State collapses in insolvency, "healthcare" acts as a giant machine which diverts money from the middle class and working poor into the coffers of the sickcare cartels and their State-Elites partners.

You want a system that works? Then depoliticize and de-cartel the system entirely. Jettison the entire sickcare system and revert to cash-only for every product and service, and offer a voluntary VA-type system which people can opt into if they choose to pay the insurance and co-payments (which VA does not have) and live with the defacto rationing of long waits and basic care which is limited by the budget alloted. There is no "entitlement," only whatever care which can be distributed for a given amount of money. Thus it's not the budget which can rise but the efficiency of the system in doing the most possible with a set sum of money.

This is the only sustainable way to provide care without bankrupting the nation.

These two systems--"pure socialism" and "pure free-market capitalism"--can co-exist quite amiably as long as people get to choose from a range of imperfect choices. If health were more profitable (to providers and to consumers) than managing disease, then entirely different choices and incentives would arise.