Hello People. I know it has been far too long since my last post. All of this traveling I’ve been doing has taken a lot of dollar and wind out of my sails. I’ll talk a little more about that soon.
But the reason for this here post is simple. Push America, the organization I have been volunteering with since the year 2000 is in the midst of a no holds barred Facebook shootout. If they get enough votes to win the Chase Community Giving challenge they’ll win $1,000,000, which as you can imagine, will help them serve people with disabilities that much better. Currently their operating budget is somewhere around $1.5 million. Take that to $2.5 million and the sky is the limit.
I wrote this last week (10/26), decided not to post until now (11/4):
I just got back from a talk given by Hank Brown (former CU President, and former Colorado Senator) on the topic of healthcare reform in the United States. The talk was presented by the Student Association for Pre-Health Professionals (SAPP) at CU. Thirty or so “students” attended. I ended up leaving with steam pouring out of my ears.
Since Mr. Brown seems to be well respected in the CU community, and considering the appointments he has had both at CU and the state government, I expected tonights talk to reveal some downright novel thinking on a tough subject. I couldn’t have been more wrong in my expectations.
To his credit, Mr. Brown did a halfway decent job of summing up the issues with the American healthcare system in just under thirty minutes. That in and of itself is a tough as nails task, and he attempted it. He described the amount of uninsured in the US as somewhere between 10 and 50 million. Then he broke that number into thirds attempting to explain the different demographics of each third. By then you can already imagine I was having problems with his statistics but I was willing to let these slide provided we got to the meat of the topic – how to solve the problems that plague the American healthcare system.
Next he tried to sum up the “bill” that will soon be voted on in Congress. Of course those of you in touch with this healthcare debacle know that there isn’t a single bill yet, there are still 3-4 that are being worked on – but Mr. Brown forgot to mention that. Instead, he focused right in on the so called “public option”. Immediately he equated the public option to a single payer system citing the fact that it would likely run the private insurance out of business. Again, he forgot to mention that under the current writing in the Senate – the public option will only be available to people whose employers don’t offer healthcare. So as of now there really is NOT a direct line to a single payer system as he let the audience believe.
Somewhere down the line he equated a single payer healthcare system to socialism. I almost fell out of my seat. I am no expert, but I’m pretty sure if the US went to a single payer system it wouldn’t mean that capitalism is canceled. Regardless, he went on to talk about the differences between east and west Germany, Hungary and Austria, and Cuba before and after communism (apparently he was equating socialism to communism too). Mr. Brown claimed that someone in England might have to wait months for a surgery they need now; he also stated that on the whole Europeans were less healthy than Americans. Now if this had been the right time and place I would have happily offered to debate him – but it was neither the right time or place. During the one instance when I couldn’t hold back any longer I spoke up and told him he was flat wrong about the majority of health insurance companies being non-profit. He was startled but seemed to know he had no solid ground to stand on.
When I asked him why no one in Congress had the guts to introduce something novel, something new to the US – he avoided an answer. There is plenty of good precedent out there – look at Hawaii with mandated employee offered insurance if you work 20 hours or more. Or look at Maryland who has uniform pricing, or Switzerland that has 100% mandated private insurance with subsidies (think bye bye medicare), or England with their NHS totally government healthcare. All of these systems produce healthier and happier people. But he just sidestepped my question and revisited why he thinks we should be naysayers of the public option. Blah.
My real problem with tonights talk has to do with what wasn’t said. IF Mr. Brown had introduced himself as a career Republican perhaps the students in the audience would have taken tonights talk with a grain of salt. But from the questions that were being asked I’m pretty sure they were looking at Mr. Brown as if he was a non-partisan healthcare expert.
Overall tonight really disappointed me. I am disappointed that pseudo-facts can be used with such ease when in a setting like tonight there are few checks on their validity. And I am disappointed that a person that spreads such misinformation has held a public office and been president of the University of Colorado. If, as I witnessed tonight, the character of our elected officials is comprised primarily of ignorance – then America is in more trouble than I had originally thought.
Alex and I are back from our trip. We did NOT make it to Panama. In fact, we only made it to San Diego. Kind of a bummer that we gave up just after completing half of our journey. But safety was important to us and we just didn’t think the risks were worth it. I’d be happy to explain more – ask any questions if you have them. But in the end I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend 75 days – I was with my brother and my bike exploring the unknown. I wouldn’t mind being back there right now.
So what have I been doing since my return? Exploring the internets, writing essays, looking for employment, mountain running, resume editing, reading, talking to schools, and sleeping. I’ve been eagerly consuming any sort of medical reading I can get my hands on. Most of the stuff I find interesting I bookmark over on my delicious page. One article of particle interest to me was an Esquire piece on Dr. Warren Hern. He’s the sole proprietor at the Boulder Abortion Clinic. Oh, and an Op-Ed by Bill Maher on the demise of our dear America.
Anyhow, for those of you who don’t know – Good is by far my favorite magazine. They just released a video today that made me melt in my chair a bit. Enjoy:
Hello friends and family. My lack of posts as of late is a direct result of the effort my latest endeavor has required. I’m in the middle of what I hope to be greatest trip of my life. My brother Alex and I are attempting to bicycle – self supported – from Anchorage, Alaska to Panama City, Panama. We started on July 5th and Hope to end in October sometime. We’ve made it 700 miles to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory in Canada and our next city is likely Prince George in British Columbia – 2 weeks away. Please follow along on our website if you’re interested: www.PedalingForPeople.org.
That’s me wringing out my cycling shorts after washing them in Lake Kluane in the Yukon Territory. The lake reminded Alex of the Swiss Alps. Incredible they were. We’ll try to log in as much as possible with good photos and stories along the way. To follow the blog go to www.PedalingForPeople.org/blog/.
My roommate Kyle got a new road bike a few weeks ago. While we were checking it out on the day of arrival, his boss came over to join him on his inaugural ride. We began to chat about cycling and I let out a statement that I still consider to be a fact but that let his boss a little unsettled.
“Yeah, I can beat most people in Boulder up a mountain”, I said.
Bob, Kyle’s boss, took that as a challenge — but he didn’t say anything immediately. A few days later Kyle came home and stated that Bob wanted to race me. Long story short, I tagged along on one of their rides to better gauge his skills as a cyclist. After a jaunt up Flagstaff, I walked away feeling like I had the upper hand should a race ever materialize.
Later that week, Alex and I met Kyle over at Avery Brewing company for a little cerveza and Bob just so happened to be there. We got to talking about athletics and he admitted that I had him beat on a bike ride up a mountain. But…. Then he had the audacity to say “I could kick your ass any time in a trail running race”.
Those of you who know me can imagine any number of things that were running through my head at that point — they are all probably accurate. I replied with a few sly comments to which each time he came back way over the top.
RACE ON.
I called him a few nights later and challenged him to a mountain duathalon of sorts. First would be a road cycling race up the Flagstaff Mountain road: from the base of the mountain (by the brick wall turn) to where the amphitheater trailhead hits the road. Then we’d cruise down, catch our breath, and change into running gear. Second, we’d race up the amphitheater trail, running.
Well compared to the race against the twelve year old where I lost handily – this was a friggin’ blowout.
Bike Race – Ryan = 19:16, Bob = 25:00ish
Trail Race – Ryan = 20:02, Bob = 25:00ish
Above: At the base of flagstaff I had just made the pass. That’s Kyle back around the corner.
Above: nearing the top – no one in sight.
Bob is planning the re-match on a less mountainous course. We’ll see how that goes.
In other news – I just launched v1 of www.FrontRangeEndo.com, my site for my fathers business. He goes by such names as Dr. William Roth, Papa, and Williberto. But I think he’d answer to things like Endodontics maestro or Root Canal Master. Just some thoughts. If you have any feedback on the visual aspects of www.FrontRangeEndo.com I’d really appreciate it. I’m certainly no design wiz. And oh yeah – I’m colorblind – so if you see some colors that aren’t mixing well, please please let me know!
My new favorite animal is the otter. Well actually, I’m not sure I had a favorite animal until now. You see, a few weeks ago I went to the Denver Aquarium and two little sea otters kept doing back flips in their little cage. Water, air, water, air, water air. Over and over and over again. Perhaps to impress us, perhaps just for fun. Personally I think it was the latter.
Then, tonight, there was a show on the Discovery channel about Yellowstone. A pack (right word?) of otters submarined through a field of snow on their way to the river. Quite clearly they were hungry and seeking their most favorite of traditional otter meals; the spanish call it pescado. Elegant to say the least.
Then I saw this photo as a I was perusing the internets:
I decided to make them my favorites. And that’s that.
Something strange happened to me the other day. Kyle, Kristen, and I biked down to 13th & Spruce to see our friend, ‘the leprechaun’ (Kristen #2) run the Bolder Boulder. Sure enough Kristen #2 started the race an hour late but we decided to wait around for some serious people watching. As I was standing on the curb looking for costumes to take photos of – out of the corner of my eye I saw a blur of motion that I thought nothing of.
As I turned to my right a few seconds later to follow some costumed creature down the street, I realized what that blur had been. An older man had collapsed while running – he was perhaps 15 feet from me, but hundreds of runners separated us. Bystanders on the other side of the street had already rushed to the man’s side. I was one week off of my CPR refresher course and wondering if the lady that was pumping his chest was doing it correctly. Hell, had she even checked to see if the man was breathing? It was pretty unclear with hoards of runners traveling between us. In fact the whole scene was pretty chaotic as several people stopped to try to help. There were spurts of what resembled CPR and other spurts that just seemed like pure confusion. The band stopped perhaps two minutes after the collapse and called for help on their loudspeakers. A bike medic rolled up and took control one minute later and an ambulance a minute after that. The race volunteers actually blocked the runners bringing them to a standstill (which I’m sure caught some runners off guard) as the ambulance screamed to our location.
Just before the ambulance arrived, Kristen #2 came running by in her costume oblivious to the events just across the street. She was having so much fun, laughing and tossing out reeses pieces to anyone and everyone, screaming about a leprechaun that was chasing her (a guy named Chris). The situation was startling and I was held aback by the stark dichotomy of life that I was witnessing. Just before me was my vibrant young friend full of laughter and life and a few feet beyond her a man was struggling to hold onto his life.
Eventually, while the medics were still performing CPR, they loaded the man in the ambulance, blocked the race again, and sent him to the hospital just down the road. The race went on, but the fun was over for us. We hopped back on our bikes – still thunderstruck by the events that had just transpired.
Following are a few pictures I snapped prior to the debacle, the rest are located over here.
Anyhow, today is the day I am supposed to get my scores. Per the pre-med circles I’ve experienced, asking someone for their MCAT score is like trying to befriend the angry elephant in the room: people don’t do it. I’m not going to blog the result. But if you’re interested, give me a call. It could be good, it could be be bad – but I’ll probably tell you regardless.
Long story short, I’m virtually out of money and need to get back on my feet financially. So if you’re mom or dad needs help setting up a gMail account. Or if they can’t figure out why Firefox disappeared. Or if they just need some computer lessons…. You get the idea. I’m happy to help them out, for a very reasonable fee.
I’ve laid out the details over at help.ryanroth.net. Please pass the address around if you’re sick of helping your friend/mom/grandpa/neighbor with their computer problems. And of course, I make both virtual and house calls.
I’m about to take the last final of my post-baccalaureate career. Should be a doozy. Some exciting announcements will be coming on this here blog very soon including a new business venture and a bad ass summer adventure.
