In the 2008 film “The Dark Knight,” the Joker refers to his struggle with Batman as an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.  This, of course, prompted me to ask the question to my lovely wife … “Well, what would happen if an Unstoppable Force were to hit an Immovable Object?”

My answer?  Although there is plenty of rhetoric abounding on the internet regarding the subject of an “irresistible force paradox”, my position is simple in comparison. 

I believe, based on what I remember from my college physics class nearly two decades ago, that an atom (aka matter) simply cannot share the same space with another atom without “rearranging the molecules” (loosely, perhaps nuclear fusion). 

Therefore, the energy of the unstoppable force would have to be transferred to the immovable object, continuing on its merry way, in the form of the immovable object (maybe).  However, the mass of the unstoppable force would take on the “matter” (molecules) of the immovable object, and thus stay put. 

But relatively speaking, as far as the immovable object is concerned, it is still there, in the same form.  It would appear as if the unstoppable force just went right through the immovable object (from our perspective), but in reality, the new unstoppable force, would be the once immovable object.  Easy enough? J

As far as the Joker is concerned, I think the point he was trying to make is that the “Hunter (aka Batman) would now become the hunted”.  Give the man some credit – he is witty.

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds…” – Albert Einstein

Arianna Huffington: On April 20th, the New York Times published its expose of the Bush administration’s use of Pentagon-approved, “military analysts” to appear on TV to help sell the invasion of Iraq. It was a major story — a damning indictment of the mainstream media’s complicity in the wholesale deception of the American public on the decision to go to war. But since it appeared, the MSM have all but ignored the story. This near-complete blackout imposed by the culpable news organizations is a despicable abdication of their role as a constitutionally protected check on our government. Fitzgerald said there were no second acts in American life. And it seems as if the MSM are committed to there being no second act to this scandal. Click here to read more.

This week is “Cover the Uninsured Week,” a campaign by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to raise public awareness about the plight of the uninsured. It could also be called “Underinsured Week” because Americans without adequate insurance coverage can suffer the same way that those without any insurance do.

The Wall Street Journal reported recently the wrenching story of a cancer patient who fell victim to having inadequate insurance. During her treatment at one of the nation’s premier cancer centers, M.D. Anderson in Houston, the nurses refused to refill her chemotherapy pump until her husband arrived with a receipt showing they had prepaid for the treatment. Health care in the United States has reached a new level of absurdity in which hospitals are requiring patients to pre-pay because so many of their customers can’t pay the bills.

The patient in the story, Lisa Kelly from Texas, had tried to act responsibility and she had the means to do so. After she had quit her job to take care of her mother, she bought a limited insurance policy through the AARP. She and her husband own two rental properties and have retirement savings, which gave her an extra incentive to buy coverage to protect her assets. As she told the WSJ, “‘I just thought I needed to have some kind of insurance policy because you never know what’s going to happen.’”

Something did happen. She developed leukemia. Her limited benefit insurance policy paid about $38,000 of her bills, but she had over $100,000 in additional bills. As the WSJ explains, over one million Americans have such insurance policies, and M.D. Anderson has a well-developed policy in such cases. According to a hospital spokesman, “‘When an insurer is going to pay the small amounts, we don’t feel financially able to assume the risk.”‘

With the benefit of hindsight, Ms. Kelly would undoubtedly have bought coverage to protect her family fully against a catastrophe. But is there a way to prevent this kind of problem? People should be able to make choices as long as they, and everyone else, can live with the consequences. Instead of wasting the considerable talents of doctors and nurses by turning them into bill collectors and putting patients in a situation where they face huge financial penalties for poor choices, our society needs to make poor choices much harder to make. That’s one key reason to require everyone to have adequate health insurance as Sen. Hillary Clinton has proposed for everyone and Sen. Barack Obama has proposed for children in their presidential campaigns.

In cases like that of Ms. Kelly, it’s easy to get mad at the hospitals or insurance companies for a bottom-line attitude, but the real culprit is a political ideology of every man for himself. Health care is simply too large a problem in life to be entirely on your own. Our nation desperately needs a health care system grounded in both personal responsibility and societal needs. Let’s hope that the next round of health care reform can get us there.

For more information:

“Cash Before Chemo: Hospitals Get Tough,”
By Barbara Martinez, Wall Street Journal, April 28, 2008:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120934207044648511.html?
mod=2_1566_topbox&mod=WSJBlog

Too many people in this day and age fail to hold others accountable for their actions, because the very nature of doing so, is often time consuming and difficult at best.

But seriously, what can be more time consuming than doing nothing at all?