Sunday Evening

Sunday evening is a time when I get myself organized for the week. It mainly involves returning phone messages, messages left for me after about 4 pm on Friday. Usually, my patients are surprised that I call on Sunday evenings. I don't do it for them, I do it for myself: it is less stressful than to wait until Monday. Typically, I get about 15 messages per day, and about 1/3 of that is about medication refills, 1/3 for new patients, and 1/3 for random stuff, like switching appointments, concerns of medication side effects...etc. I try to get through the med refill requests in between patients, and I save the rest for when I can actually converse. Not that I am all that great at conversing over the phone... I do have AT&T, after all. When will the coverage be better? (When I switch to a different plan, probably.)

Sunday evening is also a time that Hubby and I catch up on random stuff around here, like paying taxes. I have been griping about taxes for a very, very long time. When I was growing up, I remember my parents being upset every November and April, because of property tax. My Dad also dreaded the credit card bill in January- apparently, my parents bought all kinds of stuff for us when we get home for vacation- clothes, books, food, plane tickets...etc, by the time the bill arrived, we were already back in school, and so it was hard to pay this bill without seeing the kids. Anyway, now I know their pain. (Although they are no longer in this pain- all three of us are grown, they no longer pay tuition, clothes, or food for us. Or at least that is what I think, if my siblings are free loading, I need to hunt them down and get some tips about how-to-free-load.)

It is hard to pay taxes. I just don't want to pay taxes. Regardless what I hear about in the debate about health care, immigration, and education, I still don't want to pay taxes.

In regards to health care, of course, I want everyone to have access to care. However, someone has to pay, and frankly, I don't want to pay more. I was talking to another parent from Aidan's class, and Anna, a French citizen, told me about how copays are always 1 Euro for all French people for all medical appointments. That sounds AWESOME. Who wouldn't want that? She was saying how charging people differently because of what insurance you have or don't have is ridiculous. Yes, it is ridiculous. But we are Americans! We want choices! We could buy milk at Costco for $2 a gallon, but lots of us want to buy milk at Whole Foods for $6!

Fundamentally, we want choices. We want innovations. I am afraid, in my completely unprofessional opinion, that universal anything is contradictory to the fundamental beliefs of the Founders. (Not that I know what the Founders really wanted...) What I would take though, is this: If I didn't have to accrue medical school education debt, than I would happily make less money. If I could get my education for free, sure, I will take a pay cut. It would be so nice, to not have this debt: I will still be paying for my education after we are done paying for Aidan and Zoe's college tuition. Take that away, and fine, reduce my reimbursements.

As for the educational system, Anna said that universities in France charge an annual tuition of 325 Euros. That would be so awesome.

Maybe I need to move to France. But you know what? I can't. Immigration to this land of cheese (and I hate cheese), is very, very difficult. I don't know how difficult, but people I know who want to move to anywhere in Europe always complain about the process. I guess we won't be moving there anytime soon.

Canada, however, would be a different story. We can move there to open a business! (Say, a cheese making business?) And get cheap insurance! Cheap education! In my Amerocentric thinking though, the Canadians are not the people who innovate! I mean, Google, Yahoo, Apple, those are all American companies! Why? Because people need incentives, when you are paying so much in taxes, why bother? Just sit and collect your entitlements. (I am thinking that is the better way to go.) To discredit myself, AT&T is also American... and its coverage is poor.

Essentially, we have to ask ourselves: Do we want to be innovators (and thus, the free market has to be FREE to grow), or do we want to be like 'those people', who collect entitlements.

(By the way, I feel unauthentic until I admit this part: My grandparents, all four of them, never paid taxes here, yet all came here and collected social security, medicare, and who knows what else. I am part of the problem.)