Worst Commercial Ever?!

Show & Tell: My Worst Fear

Olgakatt's third theme for September is nojor - stupid, irrational fears, i.e. phobias of sorts.

I don't have any particular fears, at least not anything I can think of, except perhaps the fear (which is not completely irrational or stupid) that something would happen to Peter. But it's not something I think of every day.

Hence I wasn't sure what to write today. But as always, Google saves the day. The first hit on "nojor" was a site where you can share your "dark inner thoughts" (image borrowed from site).

Some examples from the site and commentary based on personal experience:

• * Why are they looking at me? A few times I have thought this and wondered if I have something on my face or something. But it's not such a strong fear that I have to find a mirror and look. Instead I try to think that probably that guy was looking at me because he found me beautiful! :)
• * Sitting alone in a bar waiting for friends and thinking "what are people thinking? That I'm a loser sitting her my myself, a loser without friends? What if my friend doesn't show up?" This thought has sprung to mind a few times. Luckily I have an iPhone to play with while I wait these days!
• * Thinking that everyone else thinks that I have a strange walk. Just worrying about it made me walk funny. Not in this way maybe, but if you start thinking about how people walk and then how you walk, walking sure starts feeling weird and unnatural.
• * "I was at a party at a girl's place. For those days I tried to contact her because I had forgotten my hat and gloves at her place, but had no response. So I thought she was angry with me and that I had made a fool of myself somehow. Went through the whole evening in my head, all I had done and said. Wrote an e-mail and apologised for doing something stupid. Then I had a response - she was completely unsympathetic and didn't know what I was talking about." I have had thoughts like this but usually I end up thinking "nah, that's just silly, and if s/he is angry with me, it's her/his problem and s/he has to bring it up with me, not the other way around". But first I think that there's a perfectly natural explanation why the person hasn't responded yet.
• * "When I've been in a shop and not bought anything it always feels like everyone thinks I have shoplifted." Ha ha, definitely! Probably look really guilty too even if I'm completely innocent!
• * Having to return home to check that the oven or the iron is off, even if you had made it halfway to work before you had to turn around. I can only remember doing this once. But I sometimes check appliances - if I've been using them that morning - just before I leave.

That's it for me today!

A Bit of Sicko in the Swedish Healthcare System

Johanna Graf is always so spot on! I agree with her completely so I have translated her post:

"Unfortunately I have to throw up...
...because this is one of the most tasteless things I have heard. A private children's hospital is opening at Sophiahemmet in Stockholm [where] children of parents who have paid into a private child insurance can receive care. In a web survey carried out by [the tabloid] Aftonbladet it is admittedly a majority who thinks it is wrong with privately financed [through insurance] children's healthcare, but alarmingly many who still think it is a good idea. Maybe they have fallen for the insidious talk that is always brought out when private care is the topic; "But, if more people pay for their care themselves, the pressure on the public health service will be relieved and it can work better".

But think one step further! What do you think happens to the private caretakers' willingness to pay for care they no longer need, or need less and less often? What happens with the strength of a tax system where some, often those who are less willing to pay, do not think that the quality of the service that they are getting for their money is good enough, och therefore join another [health] insurance system?

In the particular case with private children's hospitals one can also quietly ask oneself what will happen with children who are born sick and in all likelihood have not yet been - or would never be - granted a private insurance?

This with private children's insurances is already today a chapter to itself. My middle son gave the wrong answer during a hearing test at the children's health centre and is still to this day, at age 16, not granted a full child insurance with our insurance company. And I have heard a lot worse stories. NO to such a society!

In the long term one could ask why all of us together must pay for their expensive medical training if many doctors only devote themselves to help those who pay the most for their services?

To be very clear, so that no one goes mad now: What I'm criticising is NOT private care, but private insurances. (It is the same thing with the education system: It is not the free-standing schools that is the problem, it is the financing system that moves tax money around in an eternal moving merry-go-around that is very financially unsound.)

It makes me happy that it is not only Social Democrats who criticise these systems. Also the Swedish Association of Health Professionals is a warning voice: "The risk is that the cleavages in society increase, that those who cannot afford to pay receive worse care and that the public health service cannot be financed at the same level as today."

Less that three years to the election, but there are unfortunately a lot that can be destroyed before then."