Empowered and informed member of society

I'm feeling confused. I've noticed that a lot of the time I have strong opinions about things. These opinions seem to leap from no-where into my mind fully formed, rather than as a result of some kind of reasoning process. So when I am forced to actually think about them I get all tied up in knots.

For example, there was an article in a local paper about one of the nearby private hospitals which is outsourcing its maternal care to one of the local big fancy hotels. Once the new mums (do you feel like Ray Martin when you use the word "mums") have been given the okay by the doctors at the hospital, they spend their final two nights at the hotel under the care of an on-site midwife and nurse, rather than chilling at the hospital. My first reaction to this was to be outraged that health insurance would pay for this and express contempt for the whole thing.

On further (somewhat relentless) questioning by my Smaller Half, my reaction doesn't seem to make sense. For example, it's probably cheaper than staying in the hospital, otherwise the insurance company wouldn't pay for it. So my "This is a wasteful indulgence!" reaction is wrong (relatively speaking). Likewise, it's clearing out beds in the hospital which means more people can get treatment.

I was shocked that the mothers are ferried to the hospital in BMWs. But again, they're cheaper to buy and run than ambulances, so maybe it's a good idea. So I tried the angle that health insurance should only get used for "serious" problems. This opens up a whole big can of worms that I'd rather not get into - suffice it to say that if you bought the insurance, you can have the service, and vice versa. It has no impact on me at all if that's not the sort of thing I want to shell out money for.

So while my initial reaction was that the whole thing was a huge wank and was just a bunch of rich people flaunting their money over the rest of us, the fact that it's happening at all means that some very clever people have figured out how to make people happy and save money and use the hospital more efficiently at the same time. And for some reason that angers me.

I think it's because I have an underlying assumption that rich people are all arseholes and that capitalism is evil. And "rich people" are defined as "anyone who has more than me". Meanwhile my condemnation of capitalism has done nothing to prevent me from trying to use the stock market to fund my retirement. Sigh. It's depressing how inconsistent my own actions are with my judgement of other people's actions.

It's no wonder that so many people turn into such jerks eventually. It's tiring trying to figure out how to play fairly. In the end maybe it's easier and more fun to just play the game to win. Come to think of it, isn't that kind of what the new Batman film is about? You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain. I bet Batman would have some great ideas on post-natal care. Although he is pretty much your arch-capitalist isn't he? Maybe it would just be insurance all the way for him.

Random Wikipedia Link - use the power of coincidence to solve your dilemmas today!