Universal Healthcare
I am watching "Sicko" by Michael Moore. When this first came out I refused to watch it. Somehow I thought it was trendy and just about profit, and I believed the Fox News hype about how it was a pack of lies. Not that I watch Fox News, I just remember it was all over the news sites for a while.
My previous beliefs about health care was that those who pay for it should get it (outside of the young and the very old and/or other handicapped persons). I clearly remember patchouli smelling, tattered clothed twenty-somethings coming up to me at the Saturday Market asking me to sign a petition for universal health care. I used to get really mad about that. These people really didn't seem to be working to me. They seemed to be smoking pot and sitting around the Saturday market asking me to support their life of leisure. I'd think, "Get a job, pay taxes and work for a change. Pay for your own way instead of asking me to do it for you." I'm doing that, and you should be too.
Now I think I have changed camps. I realized that if anyone in our family got cancer and needed treatment like chemo or radiation...we would lose everything to pay for it.
We have full insurance. We are all healthy. We pay taxes and we eat our vegetables.
It would only take one event to lose it all: Our house, our cars, our savings, our retirement. All gone to pay for health care that we previously thought was covered by our insurance.
Our health care insurance is just below our house payment. We figured out last night that if took the money we pain in insurance and saved it...we could pay for the birth of our son in about a year. We could pay for for everything we needed in cash. Save the catastrophic needs, we'd be fine.
Catastrophic is not what it used to be. There is an insurance employee (former) who goes on camera and talks about how he used to go through patients files to find any possible reason to deny them payment for services, or to find a reason to deny them coverage at all. His job is to keep from paying for medical bills at any cost. Why? Health insurance companies are FOR PROFIT. They are not for our benefit. They are for the benefit of their shareholders and their employees.
So frankly I have no faith that if I did develop cancer, my health insurance company would not pay for my bills, nor for my treatment. This is where universal health care comes in. Health care should be for all people. Now this is usually where I would previously get all, "But that's paramount to socialism!". Not anymore. Michael Moore made the point that we already have socialized services: Fire services, police services, military medical services. If anyone alive has the fundamental right to call the fire department and be saved from a burning building, or their home protected from a fire...why is that same person not worthy of medical care if they are sick? It's non sequitir logic. Either people are worthy of all humanitarian services or they aren't. Health care seems to be the most personal human need of all, outside of salvation. Why am I willing to share the hope of salvation in Jesus Christ but not the medicine to save alleviate their illness, or their pain? I am ashamed I thought that way.
My previous fears of universal health care stemmed from my dislike of paying for other people's needs they should pay for themselves. I think I've spent enough time within the realm of public education to have seen the folks who are living off the government, with no desire to work or contribute to society in any meaningful way. Those I saw were mean, selfish and immature, usually. So the prospect of funding their lifestyles is repugnant. Yet when I think of it, I am already paying for their lifestyle. I pay for their welfare, their trips to the ER through my medical payments. It's just a reality. I cannot imagine that my 52 hour stay in the hospital birthing my child actually cost $12,000.
Did you know that in other countries the government puts a cap on the profits of drug companies? Did you know that your tax dollars that go through the National Institute of Health provide discoveries that are then patented by the researchers for their own profit. Uh, yeah, we paid for the discovery and then we pay again forever for the actual drug. An individual researcher makes money off of all of us, when we paid them to find the discovery in the first place. It's the law folks. Seriously.
I think I am for Universal Health care.
My previous beliefs about health care was that those who pay for it should get it (outside of the young and the very old and/or other handicapped persons). I clearly remember patchouli smelling, tattered clothed twenty-somethings coming up to me at the Saturday Market asking me to sign a petition for universal health care. I used to get really mad about that. These people really didn't seem to be working to me. They seemed to be smoking pot and sitting around the Saturday market asking me to support their life of leisure. I'd think, "Get a job, pay taxes and work for a change. Pay for your own way instead of asking me to do it for you." I'm doing that, and you should be too.
Now I think I have changed camps. I realized that if anyone in our family got cancer and needed treatment like chemo or radiation...we would lose everything to pay for it.
We have full insurance. We are all healthy. We pay taxes and we eat our vegetables.
It would only take one event to lose it all: Our house, our cars, our savings, our retirement. All gone to pay for health care that we previously thought was covered by our insurance.
Our health care insurance is just below our house payment. We figured out last night that if took the money we pain in insurance and saved it...we could pay for the birth of our son in about a year. We could pay for for everything we needed in cash. Save the catastrophic needs, we'd be fine.
Catastrophic is not what it used to be. There is an insurance employee (former) who goes on camera and talks about how he used to go through patients files to find any possible reason to deny them payment for services, or to find a reason to deny them coverage at all. His job is to keep from paying for medical bills at any cost. Why? Health insurance companies are FOR PROFIT. They are not for our benefit. They are for the benefit of their shareholders and their employees.
So frankly I have no faith that if I did develop cancer, my health insurance company would not pay for my bills, nor for my treatment. This is where universal health care comes in. Health care should be for all people. Now this is usually where I would previously get all, "But that's paramount to socialism!". Not anymore. Michael Moore made the point that we already have socialized services: Fire services, police services, military medical services. If anyone alive has the fundamental right to call the fire department and be saved from a burning building, or their home protected from a fire...why is that same person not worthy of medical care if they are sick? It's non sequitir logic. Either people are worthy of all humanitarian services or they aren't. Health care seems to be the most personal human need of all, outside of salvation. Why am I willing to share the hope of salvation in Jesus Christ but not the medicine to save alleviate their illness, or their pain? I am ashamed I thought that way.
My previous fears of universal health care stemmed from my dislike of paying for other people's needs they should pay for themselves. I think I've spent enough time within the realm of public education to have seen the folks who are living off the government, with no desire to work or contribute to society in any meaningful way. Those I saw were mean, selfish and immature, usually. So the prospect of funding their lifestyles is repugnant. Yet when I think of it, I am already paying for their lifestyle. I pay for their welfare, their trips to the ER through my medical payments. It's just a reality. I cannot imagine that my 52 hour stay in the hospital birthing my child actually cost $12,000.
Did you know that in other countries the government puts a cap on the profits of drug companies? Did you know that your tax dollars that go through the National Institute of Health provide discoveries that are then patented by the researchers for their own profit. Uh, yeah, we paid for the discovery and then we pay again forever for the actual drug. An individual researcher makes money off of all of us, when we paid them to find the discovery in the first place. It's the law folks. Seriously.
I think I am for Universal Health care.
Comments
(Fox News sux...just had to toss that out there! :) )