Category Archives: the dreaded politics

The vaccine controversy tied with the illegal controversy

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in Economy, peak oil, survivalist, the dreaded politics

Warning:  if you think that all illegal immigrants should get amnesty, if you think the Dream Act is a good idea, if the California version of the Dream Act made you stand up and cheer, you will not like this post.  At all.

Disclosure:  I am the grand child of immigrants.  Legal ones.  My husband is the child and the grand child of immigrants.  Again, legal ones.  So I see this issue from a little closer up than perhaps the average person.

I recently got into a discussion that turned heated on a forum devoted to fiber preparation, of all things.  What was the heated discussion about?  Pertussis.  Whooping cough, for those of you without a medical background.  Why was the discussion so heated?  Because I dared to connect the present epidemic of pertussis with the presence of illegals.

Here’s my take on this, or rather these, intertwined issues.  When I was a child, there were perhaps 20 total vaccines one was required to have to be fully vaccinated.  Today, there are as many as 80 (!).  In addition, when I was a child vaccinations were against true killers:  pertussis, diptheria, tetanus, mumps, measles, rubella, polio.  Today, it’s recommended that children get vaccinations against chickenpox, influenza (yearly!), pneumonia, hepatitis B, haemophilus influenza type B (hIB), genital warts (if you’re a girl) and more.  Yes, some of these are killers as well – but honestly, how many children have you heard of that have died from chickenpox??   And does a newborn infant REALLY need to be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted disease like hepatitis B?

I personally think that this increase in the number of vaccines as well as the increase in the variety of vaccines, along with the increase in sedentary activities for children, is what is contributing to the increase in asthma (and hence, influenza and pneumonia related illness and death) in children.  I am not alone in my thinking on this, but it is definitely not in the official party line to state such heresy…ah well.

All of my children were vaccinated.  Before they went to school.  But they were breastfed for a fairly extended period of time, and they were at home with me all day, and they just didn’t have very much exposure to other children until they were close to school age.  So with the exception of my oldest son, who WAS vaccinated on schedule and was chronically sick as well – which might have been pure coincidence – my other two were not started on vaccines until they were no longer getting passive immunity from my milk.  Let me state unequivocally, I AM an advocate of vaccination.  I am just not in favor of blindly vaccinating against things that really aren’t really a risk to an infant, like hepatitis B.  Or chickenpox.

So how is this related to illegal aliens?  Well, it’s pretty easy, actually.   I live in a country that used to be one of the world leaders in free access to vaccinations for the public as a social contract with its citizens.  That has changed pretty dramatically since my children were young; now the public health departments are cutting services that used to be considered absolutely vital, including vaccine programs.   This particular issue is compounded and confounded by the hoopla over the last 30 years linking the preservatives used in vaccines with autism – a link that apparently has since been proven false.  Since my mother was a special Ed teacher, and she is the one who first told me about the possible link nearly 30 years ago, I am not sure this is a closed issue, although I am definitely in the camp that calls Whatley’s study unethical and bad science.

But back to how they are related.  Well, in America we had a strong vaccine program for decades.  Most of our population was vaccinated, and most of our population, no matter what their income level, got their children vaccinated as well.  It was just what we did.  As a result, these childhood diseases were nearly wiped out by the time my children were born in the 80′s.  In 1983, the year my oldest was born, there were 2,463 cases nationwide.  I was unable to ascertain how many deaths there were out of that population; based on this website that contains Swedish data from the same year, it would be less than 1% and of those, 90% are non – vaccine preventable.

Then came the rise of corporatocracy, the rise of consumer culture, of debt culture, and of cuts to public services as they were privatized.  And with the loss of faith in the government to protect its citizens came the loss of faith that vaccinating was in the best interests of the average citizen rather than the best interests of the shareholders of pharmaceutical companies who made the vaccines.  And along with the rise of corporate greed, research corruption due to that greed, and a massive increase in factory farms as opposed to small farms came a flood of illegal immigrants both looking for an improvement in their living standards and willing to work long hours for sharecropper wages in the fields of those factory farms.

These illegal immigrants came from countries that have never had a strong vaccine tradition; they came carrying disease that, had our children been vaccinated against, would not have posed a public health threat.  However, our percentage of children vaccinated has been steadily dropping; the illegals bring their children who do not get vaccinated because the parents are afraid that they will end up being deported if they try to access something like a vaccination program; they put their kids into public school which exposes all of the unvaccinated children to these diseases.  This makes for a deadly combination, and makes for much pain and misery all around.  The ‘herd theory’ of vaccination is a good one, and it works – IF at least 99% of the population is vaccinated, the 1% who don’t are not terribly likely to be in danger.  But add in the fact that nearly 3% of Arizona’s children are not vaccinated based on religious or philosophical grounds, and those who are may not be up to date, and the fact that for some diseases like pertussis you may catch it even if you have been vaccinated – poor nutritional status and stress can contribute greatly to your immunity – and you have the makings of an epidemic.

Arizona actually DID have an epidemic of pertussis in 2005; California in 2010, and both were explicitly connected with the Hispanic population.  Here is a link to the California report on the 2010 outbreak; what I think you will see is that poverty plays a role in illness, and that although not stated, the high numbers of illegal Hispanic immigrants plays a large role in this problem in this country.

This last is really not politically correct, but it is true.  Sugar coating it doesn’t make it go away.  We’re getting poorer, and we’re getting more vulnerable to diseases that were nearly wiped out just 20 years ago.  This can only escalate over time.  And now that it’s back around, it’s not going to go away; we let that horse out of the barn and it’s not going back in.

 

The real wealth of our nation

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in common sense, Crafts, Economy, home, sustainability, the dreaded politics

Gene Logsden at The Contrary Farmer is a brilliant man, a farmer who is one in the real sense of the word, and who is a thoughtful writer and I believe a poet at heart.  He has a new post up regarding ‘self made’ farmers, or Yeomen as he calls them.  I read his new post nodding to myself the whole while, but it was some of the responses to his post that inspired this one.

The day capitalism, as it is now understood, entered the farming community is the day real farming died.  Agribusiness is what now exists for the most part.  Farming involves being at boot level – and sometimes eye level – with TRUE wealth – the land.  Agribusiness involves large air conditioned vehicles, airplanes, computer programs, subsidies, and debt.

What Chiara eludes to is tenant farming, which was a viable method of farming and small holding in Europe for many hundreds of years, and found its demise beginning as far back as the 1500’s when Henry VIII decided that a cash crop, wool, was more important to his personal wealth and power than his subjects.  Of course, there was also that little bit about ‘needing’ a son and lusting after the Church’s wealth.  This lust of course was fueled by the sudden influx of gold and silver to the Spanish via the New World; the resulting wealth unbalanced the power structure of Europe.  The Spanish had driven the Muslims out of Spain a mere 100 years before, and had managed to decimate their country in the process.  They willfully destroyed a productive agricultural and cultural system that was called, with good reason, the Jewel of the World.  Of course, the destroying the agriculture destroyed the nation and it was necessary for the rulers to find another means of bankrolling the country, and FAST.  Their last ditch effort was the expeditions by Columbus  in the late 1400’s to find a trade route to the East that didn’t involve Muslim hands.  Instead of trade routes, he found a society ripe for pillaging.  And pillage they did.

These factors interacted together to destroy a system that had been mutually beneficial for both land holders and land users across Europe and indeed the entire of the Muslim empire.  The end result of loving gold more than people reverberates down the centuries and affects each one of us directly today.

Even in the ‘golden days’ of tenant farming, there was no unbridled capitalism as we know it.  Guilds had exclusive rights that were procured via royal decree to produce goods and services; their products were protected by law and they were diligent in making sure guild members had the skills and knowledge required to produce quality goods.  They did this in order to maintain that exclusive right.

It is also worth mentioning that barter was the basic way of conducting business – A sheep herder would receive back so much spun yarn in trade for his wool; the spun yarn could be traded for fabric or goods from yet another merchant; those goods in turn could be used to pay rents or taxes to the landlord.  The poor acquired permission to ‘wool gather’ in the fields of the sheep and helped with household chores in return.  Money was not, for most of society, the means of trade.  Everyone understood that the land was the source of their sustenance and was the source of wealth.  Until the ‘discovery’ of the New World, that is.  The resulting flood of precious metals into the Old World shifted the focus of the entire culture away from maintaining the land to lusting after money.  Without the overarching need to protect the lands as the source of wealth, societies began to over-harvest trees for ship building for further transfers from the New to the Old worlds, which resulted in the decimation of the forests and the loss of the native wildlife.  This in return meant that the average subject was pushed off the land into the cities, increasing the poor populations which encouraged disease to spread.  It also meant that inventions were sought to replace what the tenant farmers and guilds had originally provided:   the food, goods, and services necessary to the running of a society.  It is sobering to think that the seeds of our industrial society, our current views of wealth and capitalism, were sown in the 1400’s.

It is the primacy of money over wealth that has been the downfall of our worldwide system.  Capitalism, in its strictest sense, simply doesn’t work.  One cannot value money over land, livestock, and people without destroying the true wealth –which is the land, livestock, and people.  Only when society at large realizes this, and concurrently realizes that wealth requires work, will the disaster we face begin to be mitigated.  I do not hold out much hope for that though.  Not as long as there are TV’s everywhere.

Vindication.

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in common sense, sustainability, the dreaded politics

Of course, Faux News won’t be issuing any apologies or retractions. 

As I said in a previous post, if you deny the evidence for climate change, you are willfully ignorant, deliberately deceptive, or just plain stupid.

I did some research of my own just a little over two years ago and came to the same conclusions with much less computer or personnel assistance than the Dr. Mueller’s group had.

Sweet, sweet vindication.  Excuse me while I gloat a little.

Is rescuing a flag from being burned patriotic? Or is burning it?

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in common sense, the dreaded politics

My husband emailed me a link to a video entitled “The Greatest Play in Baseball History” which is a retrospective on an attempted flag burning at a baseball stadium on April 25, 1976. It interviews everyone who is still alive who was there. I did not watch more than a minute of it.
It disgusted me – as though the guy who snatched the flag is somehow superior to the guys who were trying to set it on fire.

I told DH I thought the players and announcers were false patriots; they care more about the symbolism of a piece of material than they do about the welfare of their citizens and the fate of their country.

DH countered that the flag is sacred. I replied that it’s not more sacred than the people it represents. I do not condone such an act, but I recognize the frustration and disillusionment, and the reflection of lack of respect toward the torchers such an act represents.

I tend to think those who have the courage to burn the flag as a form of protest can be more patriotic than those who protect the flag and the status quo it represents. Not always, perhaps, but enough of the time.

Americans have trouble with attachment. Attachment to objects – like their quads and their boats, and always having the newest TV or sound system. Attachment to status – witness the mass following of the “real housewives” series (es) on TV (as though those women actually clean a toilet…). Attachment to ideas – such as what consititutes patriotism and ‘family values’. I have my own issues with attachment but things for things’ sake just don’t even make the list. My issues with attachment deal more with safety and security, issues that are at the base of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and are core issues that every Buddhist grapples with on a regular basis as well, I would guess. I’m not Buddhist, but there is much I admire in the religion, and much I’ve learned from it.

What is patriotism? Is it protecting a piece of fabric and the ideas it represents, or is it protecting the right of someone to protest in a way which you disagree?

Another bought and paid for judge

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in Independence Days, the dreaded politics

In another shocking and appalling ruling, a Wisconsin judge rules that citizens do NOT have the right to own a cow, and to drink the milk from their own cow, nor do they have the right to board it at a farmer’s property, among other things. The ruling was even broader than that – it ruled that citizens do NOT have the basic right to produce and consume their own food, period.

On Sept. 30, the judge resigned his post and went to work for Axley Brynelson, a law firm that represents Monsanto. The former judge was hired within weeks of his decision concerning cow owners. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

Karl Denninger’s “Bonus Army” post. Worth reading. Worth passing along!!!

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in common sense, Economy, the dreaded politics

Karl Denninger\’s latest Market Ticker is fantastic.  Please read, watch, pass along.  I’ve copied from his post the narrative, if you want to watch the videos click the link.  Karl and I don’t always agree on conclusions, but his assessments are dead on.

There are many who argued that The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

I retort that this is not by any stretch of the imagination always true.  Sometimes, the enemy of your enemy just means you have two enemies.  My reluctance to get involved in championing the “Occupy Wall Street” movement has to do with what I consider to be an essential first determination of which of these two principles is more-likely to be correct.

After all, supporting one is good.  Supporting the other is suicidal.

That there is no “cohesive set of demands” may be a good thing, if it’s real.  The problem is that I’m not sure this is the case.  Among some of the “looney tunes” demands I’ve heard include:

  • A $20/hour minimum wage.
  • The right to receive it irrespective of whether you work.
  • Cancellation of student loan debt (Note: Not bankruptcy discharge, which I support – just flat cancellation without consequence to the borrower.)
  • Tariffs to stop wage and environmental arbitrage (good) and wide-open borders (horrifyingly bad and flatly impossible given the first two demands.)
  • A right to a college education (not an aspiration, a right – which means irrespective of ability.  How has this worked out for our High Schools when we forced everyone, including those who are on the lower end of the bell curve in intelligence, into “mainstream” classrooms? It’s been an unqualified statistical disaster.)

Add up all the above and you have a thinly-disguised attempt to demand Communism.

Not socialism – communism.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

That not only won’t work, it will destroy what’s left of America and give rise of a dictatorship from the smoldering ruins of the collapse.

On the other hand we have demands that make perfect sense, such as:

  • Prosecute the banksters.
  • Your kids (and those not yet born!) are being told they’ll have to bail out the crooks.
  • The “99%” are against those robbing the nation.

So here’s the deal, as I see it.

If the so-called “Tea Party” is going to mean anything at all then it has to get in the middle of this debate and protest movement right now and amplify the voice that represents common ground.

There’s a lot of that common ground.  The messages we the people must send are:

  • Stop the looting and start prosecuting.  Not protesters, banksters.  Right now.  Fraudclosure, fraudulent lending practices, fraudulent securitization, fraudulent accounting here and abroad.  It all must end right now with prosecution both for past and forwardly-committed financial scam sins.
  • We will not pay for the bailouts and handouts.  Not now, not tomorrow, not ever.  Nor will our children and those not yet born.  We will withdraw consent through our cessation of taxable work product if the government refuses to meet this demand and claw back every nickel of the transfers it already made.  That response is lawful and is, in fact, exactly what happened in Egypt.  We will bring it here.
  • We are the 99%.  Yes, some of us are liberal and some of us are conservative on social issues.  On this issue – the rule of law – we are united and we stand as one.  This crap stops right now; we’ll fight about the other issues later.
  • There is a process for unpayable debts and it’s constitutional.  It’s called bankruptcy and it must be available to all with unpayable debts.  Period.  This means medical debt, it means student loans and it means mortgages.  All debts.  If you want a demand that will collapse the bankster BS game, that’s the one.  You shouldn’t get off if you borrowed foolishly but neither should the lender who lent you money they either knew or should have known you couldn’t repay.  No bailouts and no handouts on either side of the ledger.
  • We know that pulling the deficit spending and “supports” from under the banksters and housing will cause an economic contraction worse than the 1930s.  We know the pension funds are levered up with bank debt that must be haircut severely and that stock prices will fall precipitously if financial institutions are forced to tell the truth and “easy credit” is removed.  WE NOT ONLY KNOW THIS, WE ACCEPT IT AND DEMAND THAT IT HAPPEN RIGHT NOW ANYWAY.  Why?  Because we are Americans.  We make mistakes.  We accept the possibility of bankruptcy for ourselves when we make mistakes but we demand that the jackass on the other side of the desk gets the same punishment for making a bad loan we get for taking one out.  We want to buy houses when they’re cheap just like we want to buy DVD players when they’re cheap.  We want American industry to provide jobs, not jobs for Chinese who were tending rice-paddies with the “profits” flowing to executives while Americans go jobless on the dole.  We accept that realignment and re-industrialization of America will be painful but the fact remains that wealth disparity that comes from ripping people off is bad while wealth disparity that comes from being inventive and industrious is good — the latter is how we make progress and the latter are the people who we want to have the money to hire us, not the former!
  • We demand that the “cheap money” policies, which in fact are really nothing more than bailouts and handouts across the board along with protectionism for the bankster class and those who offshore jobs, end right now.  This means no more negative real interest rates anywhere on the curve and a true zero inflation target with criminal penalty teeth in the law. We’re prepared to back this up with the sort of durable protest that we see in NYC and elsewhere and we will expand it as we’re able and as is required until the above demands are met.
  • We demand tax reform that results in nobody getting a free ride and nobody having loopholes they can exploit. Whatever we do for a tax system the instructions must fit on one 8-1/2 x 11 sheet of paper and be presumptively correct under law when followed.  Your “return”, if you have to file one, must fit on a postcard.  Corporate taxation must be similarly simple and presumptive.  We demand that the government bring in via taxes every dollar it wishes to spend in programs in the present tense, not borrowing from the future.  We can and will have the debate over exactly what those services are in the public square, as we should, and render our opinions in the voting booth.  We will not tolerate one more day of deficit spending.  Period.

I don’t see anything here that the “Occupy Wall Street” folks could disagree with.  Maybe I’m wrong – but if I’m right, these seven points should be what we preach – and what we stand for.

WHERE IS THE TEA PARTY WITH THESE SEVEN POINTS –  SEVEN POINTS THAT, PART OF THE EXISTING PROTEST AND AMPLIFIED, BACKED BY MILLIONS IN THE STREETS WHO PEACEFULLY PROTEST AND REFUSE TO STAND DOWN, WE CAN BRING TO THE FORE AND MAKE HAPPEN IN THE PRESENT TENSE?

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=195248  Thanks to Karl for a call to action.

Uh Oh. I did it now.

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in survivalist, the dreaded politics, work

I received two job offers today, both of which were from jobs I applied for before I went out on stress related illness. So, after seeing the assigned physician yesterday and my personal doc today, I have officially submitted my two weeks’ notice to my present employer.

Scary, scary, scary. I’m giving up job security (Ha!) and benefits in exchange for sanity and flexibility. No guarantees of work from either job though; they’re both pool/on call which scares the bejezuz out of me. I know, realistically, I’ll work probably as much as I can handle, especially during the cold months, but still. Scareeee.

Now I have to go get my personal stuff from my locker, before they cut off the lock and take it. I’m not sure how that works when you go out on disability and then give notice that you’re quitting on the day you’re due back. Probably not in the best taste, but it can’t be helped that my appointments fell the way they did. I’m just glad I got my appointments, because doctors and the phrase ‘booked for a long way out’ go hand in hand.

I learned a lot in my term of employment there, about the health care system, people, and myself. Mostly myself, I think. Which may be the most important information I will ever garner, and is something a lot of people die without ever gaining. Often, in fact, they die because they don’t learn it.  I feel lucky in a way, to have had this massive breakdown, because it forced me to look at my lifestyle, my spirituality, my marriage, my goals, my career, and so many facets of each in a way that simply would not have been possible had I not run right up to the edge of that cliff and nearly fallen off.  Perhaps, in a way, I did fall off that cliff.  The Gods, however, had other plans for me and I fell onto a ledge about ten feet down.   “What’s wrong with you is no little thing” as my DH says…but what’s right with me is no little thing either, and the knowledge of that is what I really needed.

I am just another casualty of our broken health care system.  Thankfully there was a safety net for me; so very many people are not so lucky.  I can’t imagine how awful our life would be right now without that safety net.  I think perhaps I will do more letter writing, more lobbying (though I hate lobbyists!) for causes that we as a nation cannot afford to ignore, even in an era of austerity.

On my palm my lifeline is broken into three segments – one stops abruptly, the next starts right below it but not connected to it, and the third breaks off as a new line from the second.  I don’t follow palmistry, but my aunt was always amazed by that and predicted I would have great upheavals in my life.  If the last year is any proof, she was definitely right!

 

Democracy vs Mythology: The Battle in Syntagma Square (via sturdyblog)

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in Economy, preparedness, sustainability, the dreaded politics and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This is absolutely a must read to understand the Greek protests, and indeed the economic crisis.

Pay particular attention to this quote from the article:

“A doctor talking on Al Jazeera yesterday explained how even GPs and nurses have become so desperate

that they ask people for money under the table in order to treat them, in what are meant to be free state hospitals.

Those who cannot afford to do this, go away to live with their ailment, or die from it.

The Hippocratic oath violated out of despair, at the place of its inception.”

No bribes, but much the same result here.

Democracy vs Mythology: The Battle in Syntagma Square I have never been more desperate to explain and more hopeful for your understanding of any single fact than this: The protests in Greece concern all of you directly. What is going on in Athens at the moment is resistance against an invasion; an invasion as brutal as that against Poland in 1939. The invading army wears suits instead of uniforms and holds laptops instead of guns, but make no mistake – the attack on our sovereignty is as violent and … Read More

via sturdyblog

DNR?? Hell no, my religious beliefs don’t permit that!!

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in common sense, the dreaded politics

ETA:  Mr. TF feels I should explain that a DNR means ‘Do Not Resuscitate’.  I should also point out that hospice care includes comfort care, and is probably one of the most life affirming entities I have ever encountered.

Got news for ya baby. If you think that having a DNR for your loved one (or yourself) is interfering with God’s will, then you should think VERY HARD about this: then you should REFUSE ALL HIGH TECH MEDICAL INTERVENTIONS because THAT TOO interferes with God’s will.

You don’t get to have it both ways, sweet pea. Either you accept that your loved one is mortal, and is going to die, and LET THEM GO WITH DIGNITY after heroic interventions have been done without success, other than mere maintenance of a pulse, OR:   you shouldn’t be able to access VERY EXPENSIVE, TIME AND SKILL CONSUMING interventions that will NOT change the outcome of your family member other than to prolong their agony.

I am so VERY sick of seeing patients who are basically brain dead, who are being bounced from care center to hospital, completely unresponsive and on ventilators, who are so incredibly sick that they are guaranteed to spend days, if not weeks, in ICU, with no improvement in their health or quality of life, only to go back to the care center and start the ping pong all over again.  IF they live through it.  These patients almost without exception have no family within five hours who will come to visit them at all.  It makes me so sad, and so angry, that I literally feel sick to my stomach.  How cruel.  How sad.  How wrong.  Why??

Reality check people: everybody dies. Accept it. Quit making yourself feel better while you put your loved one through what you wouldn’t put a pet dog through so you can feel ‘moral’ about the whole thing.

Rant over.

The state of Arizona’s medical problems.

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in Economy, the dreaded politics

Well, our senate, in its infinite wisdom, did not pass the hospital levy bill.  This is a bill that was basically a tax on hospitals, clinics, and doctors that would give 3% of their take back to the state.  It was a voluntary tax — and would end up being reimbursed as the parties would end up getting it back in the form of medical reimbursement from AHCCCS and Medicare.  Think of it as a circle — these entities pay in advance to start, but get paid back as they continue to pay the 3% for future reimbursement.

250,000 people will lose their AHCCCS benefits in July.  These people aren’t going to simply quit getting sick, and they’re not going to quit coming to the hospital.  Now the hospitals are just going to quit getting reimbursed for services rendered.

Rumor has it some hospitals are already actively laying staff off — respiratory therapists, techs, and nurses in anticipation of these cuts.  Others are simply not hiring for empty positions as people leave; every hospital I know of is running on short staffing.  Not that this is new; it is merely much worse than it used to be.  One hospital I have heard of is giving ICU nurses 3 and 4 patients; telemetry nurses are getting 6 at another.  These are NOT safe nurse to patient ratios.  And I can guarantee, when (not if) the shit hits the fan and a patient has a negative outcome, the facility will blame the nurse rather than take the responsibility for overloading them.   Whichever facility that might be.

I have even heard that patients who are admitted to one hospital are ending up spending their stay in the ER because the hospitalists (the doctors who take care of you while you’re admitted) refuse to accept care if the patients don’t have insurance.  This, friends, is what will end up happening on a grand scale state wide.  I can anticipate that within a few years, some rural hospitals may even close entirely.

All this, while the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid are reducing reimbursement to facilities nationwide based on patient satisfaction surveys.  Which by the way have nothing to do with the physical quality of care, nor the appropriateness of care rendered, but with the patient’s perception of how well their desires were catered to by the staff.

This is the beginning of an absolute nightmare for access to health care in general, and illness care in particular, in this state.