the all important vote for health reform is supposed to come tomorrow. though there has been legislation and "reform" over the last ~50 years, this is a seismic shift (even though it really isn't). there will be a federal mandate for everyone to get coverage by 2014 or face penalties. the private insurance system will stay, but they will no longer be able to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions. they will actually get an influx of new customers with the federal mandate. on the one hand this could be a good thing as risk will be spread out over a larger pool of people. however there will not be a public option, which i think is a mistake. in the end my view is that government should provide health care. a federally managed plan would be able to spread the risk across the most users. additionally due to the size, they would be able to negotiate for lower cost of care and receive better rates from pharmaceutical companies and others. private insurance will never be able to achieve these economies of scale, as they operate as an oligopoly with a handful of them covering the majority of americans, but with none being the most dominant. even if there was a dominant private insurer, i don't know if i would trust what they would do with the health data they could mine from tens of millions of people. sure government could also use all that information against us, but at least there is some power in the fact that we elect people who form the teams to run these agencies. with a corporation, one would have to own stock to be able to have any say in these companies.
what really caught my attention about all of this this weekend is how tea party people are a bunch of douches. even though i don't really feel taxes are terrible on a federal level, i can accept that people are upset that there will be more taxes levied due to all these government programs, but seriously... is there any reason to hurl racial epithets around? the funny thing about the tea party protesters are that their big name supporters/spokespeople are the most mentally challenged (glenn beck? sarah palin?) people i've ever listened to. on top of that, they take their name from the boston tea party which happened because the colonists were upset because they were being taxed without any representation. we've had representation in the US at the federal, state, and local level for a long time. the best thing people can do if they're upset is VOTE those dead weight representatives OUT! however, people just don't vote anymore. voter participation is pretty horrendous here in the states. people who do end up voting also don't seem to educate themselves about the candidates either. i may have posted this before, but if you haven't seen it... really... you need to watch this video on sarah palin "supporters". how exactly would anyone even respond to these people?
so i've been playing around with drupal lately. this place has been pretty stagnant for awhile. i feel like it's time to spruce it up or call it quits. it seems like every time i post, it's always a rant. anyways, in doing some consulting work, i have been planning on launching a drupal site for the project i'm working on as the portal. i'm still figuring out the nuts and bolts of the application i'm building though. i've hit some brick walls as of late. anyone know how to display certain blob datatypes in mysql? yes it is amusing that there are different blob datatypes in sql. there are pluses and minuses for storing binary data within the database itself, and i have been leaning towards doing that... but i may have to switch gears and take the "easier" route.
i'll leave you guys with some funny. enjoy the rest of your weekend.