Word: blues
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...approach the question, What's Blues?, in another way, one could say that Blues is the history of America's 22 million oppressed black citizens. The Bluesman sings about his personal problems, of love--won, lost and forgotten--and of men and women crushed by the brutality implicit in the conditions in which they are forced to live. The Blues is about suffering but singing, dancing and listening to the Blues is one way of escapng from feeling "blue" for the moment. As Blues singer Albert King says "if you have ever been hurt by your main squeeze, down...
Despite the profusion and popularity of these Blues bands, a close scrutiny of the personnel of these groups will reveal few if any black faces among all the shoulder-length hair, mustaches, and midwestern, New York or English accents. This then is a white Blue srevival. Many of these bands play heavy funky music which sounds very Bluesy and technically it is Blues. But when Clapton opens his mouth and sings a line like, "I'm going down to Rosedale with my rider by my side," you can be sure he has never been to Rosedale, probably doesn't know...
When the idea of voluntary health insurance for the U.S. germinated in the 1930s, the actuaries insisted that whatever was covered must be quantifiable, so that it could be priced. They hit upon hospitalization as a tangible item, and Blue Cross was born. But definitions of hospital costs are so complex that ever since, while it has expanded into 45 states, Blue Cross has been involved in haggles with state insurance departments over rates...
...What Blue Cross will reimburse varies from state to state, and within states, according to what plan the subscribing group has chosen. Some Blue Cross plans in the West cover in-hospital doctors' bills, a function generally reserved in the East for Blue Shield. Whatever its limitations, Blue Cross was such a success that commercial insurance companies soon tried to emulate...
...trouble with all the early coverage, by both "the Blues" and the commercials, was that it was not health insurance, although it was widely misrepresented as such. It was, and to a great extent remains, sickness insurance. Far from putting a premium on preventive medicine and the maintenance of good health, it puts a premium on sickness. Until recently, most Blue Cross plans covered no care outside a hospital, and specifically excluded diagnostic procedures. The result has been connivance to defraud the insurers. Often if a woman needs a diagnostic pelvic examination that might better?but need not necessarily?...