Before I launch into what will probably be my last post (though don't hold me to it), I want to introduce you to Raleigh Attorney Knicole C. Emanuel with Williams Mullen and her most excellently well written and legally sound Medicaid law blog. In my humble opinion, anyone who can so eloquently and factually draw a strong comparison and contrast between Shakespeare's "MidSummer's Night Dream" and the Medicaid providers' prepayment nightmare is nothing short of a poetic knight in shining armor (yes, chicks can be knights too - why not?)
Now, on with the show...
So, people keep asking where I've gone? Commenting that they've not heard much from me lately... Well, the truth is, that while I have been known to talk to myself on occation, there are some conversations that really need a active partner for successful dialogue.
Frankly, I'm all talked out at the moment.
American author and journalist, Ernest Hemmingway was quoted as saying, "I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen."
Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Lessons in Personal Change said, "Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”
Therein lies the problem. Nobody's listening.
Everyone has something to say in this Medicaid quagmire - the MCO's and LME's have plenty to say, providers have even more to say, DHHS and DMA have their say, facilities and group homes have something to say, advocacy groups keep trying to have their say, consultants and lobbyists get paid the big bucks to keep saying stuff, and members of the North Carolina General Assembly always seem to have the final say... and don't even get me started on the recipients and their family members that most everyone seems to conveniently forget in all this.
Nobody can keep the stories straight, not even (and often, especially) the media, becasue it appears the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing while everybody's busy with their own personal diatribes and ass-saving.
Nobody can keep the stories straight, not even (and often, especially) the media, becasue it appears the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing while everybody's busy with their own personal diatribes and ass-saving.
Everybody's talking but nobody's listening.
Nevermind all of the asinine bureaucratic dynamics at play in the dirty politics of the NC Medicaid system - the inappropriate friendships, roles, relationships, mothers / daughters / board members, ethical conflicts of interest, and who's scratching who's back. Yep, we know about all that.
There are way too many egos on the line here (not to mention the obscene amount of money invested), meanwhile we continue to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic while ignoring the real issues of human concious. That's right, I said it again.
I find that this is especially true of the current political climate in North Carolina... For the first time in just over 100 years, the Republican party has finally won back the driver's seat and they seem to be hell-bent on making up for lost time with issues far more "important" than the welfare of our state's most vulnerable citizens, with such utter nonsense as nipples, fracking, abortion / right to choose, ending size limits for K-3 public school classrooms, teaching about abortion risks in public schools while lifting smoking bans on college campuses, imposing rediculous voting restrictions and flat out denying many the right to vote, slashing unemployment benefits, requiring a 2 year waiting period prior to divorce (ironically dubbed the Healthy Marriage Act), vain attempts to negate the first amendment with a state religion, and arresting peaceful protestors, among other idiocy.
Handbasket anyone?
What with all that debauchery going on, who has time to worry about the threat of homelessness to residents of NC group home facilities (yet again)? Or whether developmentally delayed recipients and their tired-ass exhausted families have the resources to make it through yet another day, or even if they do - if they are actually receiving the services they are entitled through all this slimey red tape?
I mean really? Who cares? We're such a small minority of the State's population when compared with the number of citizens who have nipples, for Christ's sake.
And speaking of Christ... Conservative politicians love to use the Bible as a platform and foundation for their arguments and justifications and while I've been known to agree with certain positions, it should be noted that countless infamous American psychopaths (Charles Manson, Jim Jones, Fred Phelps, etc.) have also used the good book as sources of inspiration and justification... just sayin'.
My Christ is not wrathful nor boastful, not judgmental nor unknind, and is not dis-compassionate nor cruel toward fellow man nor the world we live in. In the documented lifetime of Jesus, he exhibited love and compassion to all, even those who sought to destroy him and especially for those who could not do for themselves.
I believe Christ to be alive in the very essence of our collective being, our hearts if you will, a state of mind we all should strive toward. --A perpetual state of love and forgiveness... a state of grace and joy I witness every single day in my own special daughter, Isabel, and her special peers.
Where the hell are our priorities?
It's way past time for the North Carolina "powers that be" to start listening more to the people, their constituents and voting public, who must live with, and at times suffer from, the repercussions of their actions and decisions.
You do NOT know what is best for me and mine; that, I can guarantee you. And I'm certainly not in the minority there.
You do NOT know what is best for me and mine; that, I can guarantee you. And I'm certainly not in the minority there.
Perhaps if everyone suddenly, miraculously began to listen more, really listen, and made an honest attempt at understanding one another, as I believe the late Steve Jordan had hoped, we wouldn't require knights in shining armor to mitigate such a shameful Comedy of Errors... though sadly, nothing seems to grab attention these days (and further waste taxpayer dollars) quite like a good ole American law suit, eh?
Hang in there folks.
