Josh Buckner

Here’s a little bit of hospital slang I learned from a friend: the homeboy dropoff. In at least one Southern California hospital, that’s what they call it when gangsters drive their bullet-ridden or overdosing buddies to the hospital, only to drop the homeboy on the curb outside of the emergency room as they rush off to avoid being identified.

Homeboy dropoffs usually involve drug overdoses or life-threatening wounds from gang fights. Since these activities are illegal, a homeboy has to be in really bad shape before he’ll be brought to an emergency room. Hospital staff will rush to his rescue, working to save his life while there’s still time. When confronted with this situation, emergency room doctors and nurses don’t ask questions or consider consequences; all that matters is preventing the death of a human being. On the other hand, the scumbag friends who shoved him out of the car and sped off… they weren’t too worried about their homie at that point.

Sometimes, the homeboy survives the ordeal and has the opportunity to meet the person who saved his life: a complete stranger. This can be a powerful life-changing experience for people caught in the cycle of gang violence or drug addiction. A second chance at life. Some need a third or fourth chance before they learn their lesson, and some never do learn.

Hypothetically speaking, let’s say this gangbanger/junkie has no health insurance and can’t afford to pay the hospital bill. Let’s go one step further and say he’s also an illegal immigrant. Who pays for his life-saving emergency care? The answer: We all do. Depending on various factors, uninsured E.R. costs are paid by some combination of federal, state, county, and hospital funds. Ultimately, the burden falls upon the people who can afford their own health care. Sound like socialized medicine to you?

This is the current health care system in the United States. Socialized medicine is nothing new in this country. As an American taxpayer, part of you might be a little pissed off to find out your tax dollars are being spent on homeboy dropoffs. Instead, take pride in the compassion and respect for life expressed by this aspect of our health care system. And given the vast resources available to us in America, not many people would want doctors to simply stand by and let the homeboy die in front of the hospital.

The debate about health care reform is not really about homeboy dropoffs. They’re already covered (emergency room visit, not follow-up care). We need serious reform because health insurance, medical procedures, and prescription drugs are becoming too expensive for regular working Americans to afford. If middle-class folks can’t afford health insurance, then it’s hard to justify government-subsidized health care for the Americans living in poverty. Costs are going up while the number of insured is shrinking. If we continue at this rate, the entire thing falls apart – including the private health insurance business. We need to fix the health care system so it works for everybody.

Strong, smart health care reform should drastically cut the overall cost of health care, insurance, and pharmaceuticals. Don’t blame the homeboy dropoffs for the fact that America overpays for health care.

Posted in: Politics by Josh Buckner / Tags: health care, poverty, reform, tax

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Health care reform is the big debate in American politics right now, with the so-called public option being likened to European-style socialized medicine. That’s supposed to be a bad thing, I guess.

By the magical knowledge-bearing powers of the internet, I discovered some research which compares the United States with 18 other industrialized nations by the rate of preventable deaths. Preventable deaths are defined as: “deaths from certain causes before age 75 that are potentially preventable with timely and effective health care.”

In a Commonwealth Fund-supported study comparing preventable deaths in 19 industrialized countries, researchers found that the United States placed last. While the other nations improved dramatically between the two study periods—1997–98 and 2002–03—the U.S. improved only slightly on the measure.

Source: Measuring the Health of Nations: Updating an Earlier Analysis

To make it worse, the United States also spends more on health care than any other nation. Before you get too upset, you have to remember that health care is treated as an industry in this country. So if we judge the health care sector alongside other commercial enterprises, everything’s going great. Why change?

Posted in: Politics by Josh Buckner / Tags: business, economy, health care, reform

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President Obama has recently declared that the United States is not a Christian nation at war with Islam. He also bowed to the Saudi King, shook hands Hugo Chavez, and promised the world that America would not torture. For this Obama has been criticized as showing weakness, a criticism most famously made by former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Is Cheney right or wrong about Obama? How do you measure political strength, anyways? When I listen to the debate over the strength of Obama’s leadership, I notice that people seem to prefer either masculine or feminine leadership styles. So what is the difference between them?

Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.
- General George Patton

Masculine leadership is marked by power hierarchies and deference to authority. A masculine leader understands that his followers need strong and decisive leadership, so he is not afraid to exercise his authority through force and intimidation. Defy his leadership and face clear, merciless consequences. Preemptive aggression serves to solidify his dominant place in the pecking order. Masculine leaders have achieved positions of authority by winning battles in direct competition (politically or militarily). At its best, a masculine power structure provides clear lines of authority, accountability, and effective top-down communication. At its worst, masculine leadership is vulnerable to abuses of power and extremely adversarial relationships. You’re either with us or against us.

What does a strong masculine leader do when called upon as a third party to help negotiate a peace deal? His view is quite simple: don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.

Bush received a lot of criticism when this video footage was released, however I believe this was actually a strong display of masculine leadership. Hezbollah challenged and therefore opened themselves to retribution. From Bush’s powerful position, the idea of doing something to end the conflict didn’t even warrant a pause in his meal. (It can be argued that Bush did not hold Israel accountable in the same way that he condemned the violence from Hezbollah, but that is beyond the scope of this article.)

Commentator Bill O’Reilly is a pretty accurate example of masculine-style dominance. Regardless of your opinion about him, the man is trained to detect any sign of weakness and pounce upon it. Listen to his interpretation of this exchange between Obama and Hugo Chavez.

Empathy is the biggest negotiation tool. I must try to understand where the other person’s coming from to make points for my side.
-Lee Ducat

Feminine leadership seeks group cohesion and actively builds consensus. A feminine leader recognizes the power of unity and inclusiveness, and her strong communication skills make her an attractive leader. In negotiations, she understands the other side and finds win-win solutions. Feminine leaders come to power by dissolving the competition as opposed to beating the competition. At its best, feminine leadership allows all parties to feel that their voices matter, and therefore have a shared investment in a common outcome. At its worst, feminine leadership is overly accommodating in its attempts to build alliances.

Now let’s contrast these leadership styles with the opposite end of the power spectrum, again through the masculine/feminine voices.

The masculine-submissive type has resigned to the fact that he is not in charge. He avoids conflict because he usually winds up on the losing end. He’s bitter that nice guys finish last, but finds some comfort in being the nice guy who always does what he’s told. He might advocate pacifism and world peace based on his fear of losing the conflict.

The feminine-submissive type seeks to reduce conflict and avoid confrontation by downplaying her own interests. If people are upset with her, she assumes it’s her fault and does what she can to appease them. This style can be summed up as blaming America first.

In light of these distinctions, what type of leadership do you think President Obama embodies? If you say that Obama is a weak leader, please explain what you mean. Do you believe that Obama’s feminine leadership qualities are ineffective, or are you saying that he fails at being a cowboy-style leader? It’s fair and helpful to debate the merits of masculine vs. feminine leadership, but don’t simply equate feminine leadership with weak leadership. Perhaps, as in love, the most effective leaders utilize the best of both worlds while minimizing the shortcomings of both.

The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.
-Jim Rohn

Posted in: Politics by Josh Buckner / Tags: Bush, Cheney, foreign policy, leadership, Obama, psychology

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Here’s where I think the tea parties really missed a huge opportunity: bailouts. I heard a lot of talk about wasteful spending, skyrocketing debt, and unjust taxes; I didn’t hear much about the gigantic sums of taxpayer money going straight to failed banks run by highly questionable CEOs. Oh, and good luck getting any details on what all that bailout money is being used for.

Why doesn’t this piss you off? This is why some on the Left suspect sinister theories that the Wall St. elites are secretly using your tea party protests to divert attention away from the sweet deal that they’re getting. (For the record, I don’t believe this in the strict sense. However I do think that they egg you on from the background, like a coward tries to instigate a fight in order to avoid getting in one himself.)

At least with the stimulus bills, we’re getting concrete things that will directly improve our quality of life. I’m positive that some politicians used it as an opportunity to return favors and fund prestige projects, but by and large that was not the case. Unemployment benefits and health services help us regular folks. I’m not so sure about this steaming pile of bailouts, bonuses, and plans to buy up toxic assets.

Are conservatives afraid to protest the crooks in the private sector? Don’t wanna seem too Ralph Naderish? Members of government and private industry are both tainted in this economic crisis.  So let’s reform government (Treasury, Dodd, etc.) and reform financial regulations. And let’s decide whether we’re going to force these banks to reform (As in resigning executives, deconsolidation) or let them fail. No more half-steppin. I’d like to think that, for all that we’ve lost in this recession, we’ve at least purchased the knowledge to prevent it from happening again.

The Baseline Scenario is a source I trust for unbiased information about the economy.

Posted in: Politics by Josh Buckner / Tags: bailout, business, economy, protest, recession, reform, tax

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