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Press Ganey is an outfit that does…uh, something having to do with… um, making hospital administrators feel good about themselves, maybe? Their mission statement:

For more than 20 years, Press Ganey has led the health care industry with a clear mission based on partnership, results, solutions, support, and care.

In other words, their mission statement is:

We have a mission statement.

One of the things they do is to give doctors awards based on patient satisfaction surveys. It seems that doctors are properly skeptical about this methodology.

But that’s not what I want to talk about.

Here’s the award:

Why would anyone want a health care award that looks like this:

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…And the Federal Government wants to help.

1-800-SUICIDE is a privately owned, non-profit phone network that provides anonymous suicide counseling. A few years ago, they made a terrible, terrible mistake: they accepted a grant from the Federal Government.

Now the feds want to take control of the phone number. Likely result: instead of anonymous counseling, you get the cops.

I do not even know how to express the rage I am feeling as I type this.

I’ve said this before. I’m going to say it again now. I’m going to say it over and over and over until it sinks in:

We do not trust the government to read our mail. We do not trust the government to stop us on the street and ask for our papers. We do not trust the government to listen in on our phone calls. We do not trust the government to come into our homes and businesses and search our records or our belongings.

And yet, many of you f… — excuse me while I suppress a stream of shrieking profanity — many of you think you can trust the government with your health care? With the intimate personal records that it requires? Are you mad, or just so [deleting foul word] stupid that you cannot manage your own lives and in fact deserve to have your most intimate secrets in the hands of the people that want to turn 1-800-SUICIDE records over to the police? While taking half or more of your salary, and condemning you to a lifetime of filling out mind-numbing forms for the privilege of doing so.

God. Damn. You.

Wake the fuck up!

These people do not want to help you. They want to own you, every hair on your head, every cell in your body, every base-pair in your DNA. Every thought in your brain, if you give it to them.

Stop already. Just stop.

Because if you give them yours, they’ll take mine too, and if that happens, I will kill myself.

But I will take as many of them with me as I can, rather than let them take me away, and turn me into one of you.

God Damn You.

You asked for this.

The next President of the United States will probably give it to you, good and hard.

“Them,” Dave? “They?” Who “Them”? That’s crazy talk, you know.

SAMHSA, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Adminsitration. Currently running 1-800-273-TALK, a competing suicide hot line. If you call this number, knowing that it is run by the feds, you deserve every single degrading humiliation they inflict on you, you idiot. Better you should just kill yourself now, OK?

Department of Health and Human Services

And the usual suspects, like the IRS, the DEA, the BATFX….

Via McQ at Q and O, the most frightening set of charts I’ve ever seen. [The narration text is on the left, with a Mute button above it if you don't have the patience to listen to it.]

Ross Perot, “the hand grenade with a bad haircut”, as McQ puts it, presents a lesson on “Suicidal Spending”, explaining what the Federal budget numbers and projections mean, and it’s bad, very. Almost all of the bad news comes from “non-discretionary spending”, that is, “entitlements” the government is required to pay out to its dependents. Most of those are Social Security, welfare, and health care, and of those, the one that’s steaming out of control is health care.

Let me emphasize: It’s not the Bushitler’s War of Lies that’s exploding the national debt. Nor is it his Tax Cuts for the Weatlhy Not Poor.

It’s us Baby Boomer hippies, and our insatiable and insane desire to put our retirement and health care in the hands of a government we don’t trust to tell us whether or not we should smoke a joint.

I’m a Boomer, ashamed of and, increasingly, frightened by that status. My Generation is responsible for reducing us to a nation of superstitious cowards, traitors, and freeloaders. As Perot’s presentation shows, the ratio of workers to retirees is falling; the pyramid scheme is cratering. Further, the public education system, the one created, operated, and managed by My Generation, is turning out bleating sheep, not productive citizens, with zero ability or desire to take care of themselves, much less their parents and uncles and aunts.

Worse, the increasing willingness of the government to tax and flat out confiscate private property means that even capitalist pigs who, unlike me, have engaged in the oppresive fascist practice of prudent financial planning, will fare no better. Their bank accounts and trust funds will be socialized to feed the restless flock.

At this point, I’m no longer worried about whether I’ll be able to retire on Social Security and Medicare. I know that’s a rapidly evaporating pipe dream.

I’m worried about having to listen to “When I’m Sixty Four” blaring through the Golden Oldies Rest Camp loudspeakers when I’m led off to take The Shower.

OK, I think Edward Kennedy is very high on the list of evil people in Congress, but that doesn’t mean I wish him undignified suffering and death.

Instead, along with Sigmund, Carl, and Alfred, I “fervently hope that the good Senator from Massachusetts finds the best health care that Cuba or Canada has to offer. We know the choice as to where he receives treatment will be [a] difficult one, but the senator is a recognized and distinguished authority on the shortcomings of the American health care system. We are certain his choice will serve as an example for all Americans.”

Michelle Obama serves:

The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.

And Geek With a .45 smashes the return right through her black heart:

Look, Bitch.

You already got the biggest slice of my pie.

Fuck off, you and all your pals. Ya hear?

Hillary’s said something similar (to Michelle, not the Geek).
Update:
I asked over at the Geek’s, and he answered:

Many of you are well enough off that … the tax cuts may have helped you,” Sen. Clinton said. “We’re saying that for America to get back on track, we’re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.