I’m breaking a blog rule right now, because there’s something so important, so crucial, so personal and critical to my very life going on right now in politics, that I can no longer remain silent. I have a request to make of each and every one of you, as friends, and I can’t wait anymore to ask it.
The Democrats in Washington have long been saying that they want to put an end to “politics as usual”. Hell, Obama ran on a platform of “change”, that he was going to transform Washington, so that we could all have “meaningful debates on important issues.”
Our country – I, myself – need that meaningful debate right now, because right now, Democrats are trying to shove something important into legislation under the cover of darkness, without us even knowing it, without us even having the opportunity to have that meaningful debate. Where’s the change? Where’s the difference between the same old politics as usual in Washington and the new age of hope we were promised? How is this different, Mr. Obama?
What’s being hidden away in legislation is universal healthcare. I can’t live with universal healthcare. I’ve tried explaining this many times before. You all know that I have a very rare genetic disease that is fatal if left untreated. You all know this. Many of you have seen me in person and have seen what it’s done to me, to my body, to my life. You’ve seen this disease up close and personal, as best you can without being me or a member of my family.
You should know that I have many friends who share this disease who were unlucky enough to be born into countries that have socialized medicine, i.e. universal healthcare. They’re dying because of it. This disease, like so many other rare or complicated medical problems, has been deemed too expensive, too complicated, too cumbersome for the government to expend resources on in an attempt to save the lives of those who suffer from it. My friends, who have the same disease that’s ruining my life, are dying because their governments have decided that their lives just aren’t worth the effort. Their lives aren’t worth the expense. Their lives are worthless in the eyes of their government.
And the Democrats want to bring that same form of medicine to this country. Where I will be deemed worthless, where my care will be deemed too complicated to warrant the expense. Like them, I will be left to die a slow, painful, debilitating death, thanks to socialized medicine. It won’t be immediate. It could even take as many as ten to fifteen years. But those years will be filled with pain so excruciating that I won’t be able to leave my bed. I’ve felt that pain and I can tell you it’s the worst thing I have ever, ever experienced. Far worse than the amputation of my toe, far worse than anything else. Every nerve of my body screams so loudly it’s deafening. As that pain continues for years, I’ll slowly begin to lose organ function. The inflammation just kills things off over time, as if your body’s at war with itself. Tumors will develop throughout my body. Some might even form on internal organs, causing them to shut down. Or I may just grow so large that eventually my heart and lungs just won’t be able to keep up. And my government will not care. They will not do anything. They will not even give me pain medication to ease the suffering.
How do I know this? Because that’s what’s happening to people I know, right now, in other countries that are under the thumb of government-run healthcare. They’re run around in circles at first, they’re told to go to clinics on the other side of the country, they’re told to wait a year for an appointment. Once they finally get run around in circles for several years, they’re finally just flat out denied and told politely to just go away and die. It’s the medical equivalent of being sent off on an iceberg, alone, to suffer without help, without comfort, without hope.
I’m not saying our medical system is perfect. I know there are people suffering in this country right now because they don’t have access to healthcare. But you know what? Shouldn’t we at least have the right to discuss the issues openly before something as important as the future of our nation’s health is shoved down our throats by politicians and bureaucrats in Washington? Ask yourself, if your life depended on it, would you want someone else making this kind of decision without giving you the chance to defend yourself? Without giving you the chance to even ask for details or clarifications? Or worse, without even realizing it was being done until it’s too late?
That’s what the Democrats are doing in Washington right this minute. They’re shoving universal healthcare into this so-called stimulus bill that Barack Obama was shilling for just last night. They’re using this crisis as an excuse to finally shove us into socialized medicine without first giving us, the people, the right to thoroughly debate the issue and decide for ourselves. That’s not government for the people, by the people! That’s not what our republic is about! That’s not even what Barack Obama promised us when he ran for President!
I’m not going to stand for it, and my hope is that neither will you. I don’t care if you’re a Democrat, a Republican, or anything in between. I’m not asking you to not support the stimulus bill or the party of your choice. All I’m asking you to do is to respect the right of every citizen to engage in a debate about the issues that affect their lives and the lives of every citizen of this country, the right to come to an informed decision on their own, before that decision is made for them and without their knowledge. That is not right, that is not change, and that is not hope. That’s just plain wrong. Healthcare is far too important of an issue to just rush through under the cover of darkness when no one is looking. It’s disrespectful to the American people for the Democrats to shove universal healthcare into a stimulus bill. It flat out does not belong there!
Please, I’m begging you. For my sake, write to your congressperson and your senator right now and beg them to remove every single aspect of the stimulus bill relating to healthcare so that the American people may exercise their right to discuss, debate, educate, and decide for themselves. This issue is too important to be decided without our knowledge and without our consent, hidden away in a completely unrelated bill. My life depends on it, and some day, yours might too. So don’t let them do this, please, for the love of God, don’t let them do this.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the time or energy to have the debate about universal healthcare this week. Why? Because I’m spending this week fighting for my life. I have important appointments with a specialist that’s been flown in on my behalf because my situation is just that severe, just that dire. If you’d like to have a discussion or debate about universal healthcare, I would be happy to get into it with you, just not this week. But I couldn’t wait to post this, because we may not have until next week to stop this from happening without our consent. Please, this is too important to ignore. So let’s get this issue out of the stimulus bill so that we can all have time to debate it and come to an educated compromise. This isn’t about an ultimatum on universal healthcare. If you support it, I’m not asking you not to support it. I’m simply asking you to respect the American peoples’ right to debate these important issues and come to a decision on their own, rather than having that decision made for them without their consent. These issues need to be handled in a healthcare bill, not tucked away in a stimulus bill.
Am e-mailing my representatives even as I speak.
I’m e-mailing my representatives to thank them for instituting government-sponsored health care for those who can’t afford it while trying to ensure a better economy so that those who have private health care – and will still have every right to pay for health care if they prefer a plan that covers what they need – can still afford to have it.
Jordan, the problem with this bill – aside from it being shoved into a stimulus bill, without being announced and without giving the American people ample opportunity to evaluate the issue at hand (they even went against their own legislated promise to allow 48 hours for review before approving a bill), is that this doesn’t just have to do with those on government-sponsored health care. I was going to post more details in an upcoming post, and I still will, I just didn’t have time when I posted this entry.
The specific problem with what’s being proposed in this stimulus bill (again, in an unrelated *stimulus* bill, so it wasn’t even reviewed by the appropriate health-related committees), was that it ordered for a government bureaucrat to review every single order written by every single doctor for every single American citizen, regardless of whether or not they were on government-sponsored healthcare. It specifically said that the government will decide whether your doctor’s orders are “fiscally responsible”. If this non-medically trained bureaucrat decides that what your doctor has ordered for you isn’t fiscally prudent, they can deny it. If your doctor tries to order it anyway, or tries to work against the system, he can face fines, jailtime, and even the loss of his medical license.
And again, it says explicitly that this applies to “every American citizen”. That’s a direct quote.
Again, I will be providing direct links to the bill itself, it’s just that takes time to track all that back down again, and I’ve had such a crazy busy week going to see this doctor that was flown in for me that I haven’t been able to do that yet. But I was running short on time before the bill got voted on, so I had no choice but to put up this last ditch plea for assistance. I apologize for not being able to put up direct links and sources before.
But again, my point still stands. This was government-sponsored healthcare being legislated behind our backs, shoved into an unrelated bill, which not only kept it from the American people, but also kept it out of the appropriate committees. Not only were we, the American people, robbed of this important debate and the direct ability to make our own decisions, but it was kept from the proper Senate committee that’s supposed to handle issues relating to healthcare. That’s just wrong. So no matter how all of us feel about universal healthcare, this goes against basic principles that should be shared by all of us in every party, that the American people have the absolute right to decide what our representatives are voting on so that we can give them our feedback so that they can actually represent us, their constituents. If we aren’t given that opportunity, then this is no longer government of the people, by the people, and for the people. That’s a very, very dangerous path, one that no party should be treading.
I agree that how they went about it is wrong. Can’t argue that point. But the matter also still stands that they have a Constitutionally-established right to attach riders to bills. I wish the rider system would be abolished; many good bills have been killed based on attached riders, while others that are terrible have been passed because of riders. The vast majority of riders are just added bribes to Senators and Congressmen to get them to pass bills into law. They’re a detriment to our system.
So, yeah. I’m all for government-sponsored health care, especially for children (which is a promise Obama made in his campaign), but how they went about passing it is indeed very wrong.
Bad Congress! No treat for you!
Jordan – This is another part of the universal healthcare argument that really bothers me. Yes, Obama made a promise in his campaign to get government-sponsored coverage for children in America. But the fact is, that in unto itself was a lie, or at the very least, misinformation. Why?
Because every child in America already has health insurance. It’s called Medicaid.
Long before SCHIP, long before Obama’s campaign promises, children were automatically covered by Medicaid. Every single child in America. The only thing is, naturally, it had caps, so that the system could not be abused by families who could easily afford health insurance for their children yet simply chose not to purchase it. I can’t give you the actual cap figure, because it varies by state (based on the market prices in that state, so that prices are adjusted based on what services cost in that area), but for the most part it varies between $45k-$75k per year. According to pretty much all industry estimates, at those salaries, it is easy, reasonable, and fiscally feasible for a family making that much money per year to at least afford health insurance for their children. Anyone making below that figure, their children are automatically covered by Medicaid. That includes everything from emergency room visits to primary care doctors to complex surgeries. So those children Obama told you about, they’re already covered. And he should know that.
I’m intimately familiar with this issue because I had a friend who abused the system. I learned all about it because of them. The father purposefully quit his job, then delayed looking for another job, so that they could have a complex, expensive, and non-life-threatening surgery performed on their child without having to pay for it. Every fiscal aspect of that procedure – including the copays – were covered by Medicaid. It was covered by your tax dollars. There are aspects of the system that need to be fixed, yes, but lying to you about poor children not having access to healthcare – when they clearly do – will not solve those problems.
So when Obama was talking during the campaign about insuring American children, that infuriated me, because it’s a lie. They’re trying to get us into universal healthcare for adults by using the same old tug-at-the-heart-strings excuse of, “But, for the children!! We have to save the children!!” But the children are already covered, the children have already been “saved”, so why are they continually using them as poster children for the universal healthcare campaign?
Because it works. Because it gets us all worked up so we can’t stop, wait, think, and look at the facts for ourselves. So we can’t just do a little bit of research and realize, “Wait a minute, this issue was already solved years ago!”
So when you say that what they did was okay because we need healthcare coverage for children, that’s just more evidence that we’re being sold universal healthcare under a myriad of misnomers, half truths and outright lies. Politics aside, if a salesman tries to sell you something with nothing but lies and half truths, that’s called false advertising, bait and switch, and it’s against the law. The fact that the Democrats are consistently trying to sell us universal healthcare with nothing but the same tactics, it infuriates me, because it keeps us from being able to have an open, honest debate about the root of the problem and how we can go about solving it effectively. And it’s one of the main reasons I’m not a Democrat, because I’ve seen it too much, and Obama used every single one of those tactics during his campaign, telling us we had to “insure the children”, never mind the fact that they’re already insured.
But you know what else? I’m also not a Republican, because the Democrats have been repeating so many of their lies about the need for universal healthcare that now the Republicans are repeating them too. Here’s just one more example to give you an idea of just how far off base these people are.
During the second to last presidential debate, the issue of healthcare came up. Both Barack Obama AND John McCain repeated the same statistic – that “40-50 million Americans are uninsured.” That figure gets bandied about a lot whenever this topic comes up. When I heard that figure, I was amazed. But I stopped, I thought about it, and I did my own research. You want to know what I found?
It’s false. So completely false.
The first instance I could find of that figure being brought up was in Michael Moore’s movie ‘Sicko’ – on Michael Moore’s own website, he said “There are nearly 50 million Americans without health insurance” (link). That was the first time I could find where someone used that direct figure about how many Americans are uninsured. After that, it seemed like every single Democrat politician was repeating it every time someone brought up healthcare – that, and we had to “save the children.”
When Michael Moore was doing his press junket for the film, he was on Larry King Live when he was finally asked where he’d come up with that figure. He said he found it in a Census Bureau report on healthcare, “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2005,” which he then posted a link to on his blog. (That link has since disappeared, and he is now linking to a CDC report, which I haven’t read fully yet, still working on it.) Several Democrat politicians who have regularly cited that same figure – including Nancy Pelosi – have all pointed to that one census report.
I read that census report. And while yes, it does say the number of “46.577 million” in it somewhere, it never says that 40 million Americans are uninsured. Rather, that is the total number of people who were currently without health insurance when that census was taken. Most importantly, however, the census provided further information to break down that 40+ million into categories of individuals.
According to Michael Moore in Sicko, his belief is that the only prerequisite for access to healthcare in this country should be that the individual should be an “American citizen.” Even by his own opinion, that means that the figure of 47 million would lose roughly ten million individuals, because the Census Bureau report included 9.487 million people who are “not a citizen.” So subtract that roughly 10 million non-citizens from the total of 47 million, that means we’re down to 37 million, even by Michael Moore’s own opinion of having to be an American citizen.
But let’s leave Michael Moore out of this and focus on the Democrats – and even many Republicans – who are saying we absolutely must have socialized medicine NOW, without thinking, shoved into a stimulus bill, because of the “40 million Americans uninsured right this minute, and all those poor uninsured children!” Let’s break the rest of the remaining 37 million actual American citizens that are supposedly without health insurance and figure out what the real root of this problem is. Because you can’t solve a problem until you actually know what that problem is, right?
Many of the same people who report on this number of 40+ million Americans also claim that many are uninsured because they “can’t afford insurance.” The Census Bureau covered that too, if they’d only look at the reports they’re linking to as their sources.
According to that report, there are 8.3 million uninsured people who make between $50,000 and $74,999 per year, and 8.74 million who make more than $75,000 a year. So that’s roughly 17 million people who can afford health insurance, yet simply choose not to purchase a plan. So 17 million minus 37 million leaves us with 20 million American citizens who make less than $50,000 a year and therefore “can’t afford insurance” – that’s less than 7% of the population. That’s still pretty damn good, but I’m not done yet.
Remember what I said about Medicaid? Government programs already exist for children, the disabled, the elderly, and even more! So the vast majority of the remaining 20 million individuals already qualify for existing government aid, but simply have not signed up for it. You’re an example of that, in a way – you’re begging your chosen candidate for healthcare coverage for children, and yet it already exists. People need to take at least some initiative, look for these programs, and sign up for them, otherwise those programs are useless. But I wouldn’t want the government coming in and forcing me to sign up for anything either. It’s a fine line we tread, and sometimes people aren’t going to make the right decision. That’s life. But that doesn’t mean we should lie about it either.
So without knowing for certain the exact demographic break-up of that 20 million and exactly how many would qualify for government aid, we can then take that number and compare it to industry studies of a similar nature. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a liberal non-profit frequently quoted by the media, places an estimate of uninsured Americans who do not qualify for current government programs and make less than $50,000 a year at between 13.9 million and 8.2 million. That’s a dramatically smaller number than the 40-50 million that’s being bandied about by Democrats and the media. And yet that’s a figure specifically from a liberal non-profit! Many other insurance companies provide data that suggests those numbers may actually be inflated!
This is what I’m talking about, Jordan. These are the half truths, misnomers, and outright lies that are affecting this debate, that are affecting the very fabric of our nation. The people telling us these half truths, misnomers, and lies, they know better. A good number of them, in fact, were involved in the original process of getting Medicaid to cover children. They know that they’re being dishonest. So if we have evidence that they’re being dishonest, shouldn’t we evaluate their true motives for trying to sell us universal/socialized healthcare under the guise of false advertising? Shouldn’t we question why they’re trying to so dramatically alter the debate, to the point where at times we aren’t even allowed the luxury of a debate? Can’t you see how this makes them sticking this into an unrelated stimulus bill that much worse?
This stimulus bill isn’t a one time issue, a one time problem. This is a grand and sweeping gesture by dishonest politicians who are outright expecting us to either not notice or not care. Nancy Pelosi herself said this past week, when questioned about what she thought her constituents would say about her and her colleagues not sticking by their own legislation about allowing a 48 hour review period before the passage of a new bill, you know what she said? That the “duplicity” of her actions “would not bother” her constituents. I’m still looking for the exact quote – I saw her say it on TV a few nights ago and haven’t found it on the Internet yet, but I’m looking! – but holy crap, doesn’t that tell you something? Not only are they trying to sell you something with false advertising, but they’re doing it quickly, they’re breaking their own rules to do it, they’re doing it with such duplicity and hypocrisy, and yet they think you flat out won’t care.
I care. I care so much, because whether or not we follow them on the road to socialized medicine will affect my very life. I at least wish people would have enough respect for that, for themselves, and for this country, to at least realize what’s the truth and what’s a lie. Because we’re being fed nothing but garbage and nonsense by these politicians, and they think we won’t care. It’s about damn time we realized it and it’s about damn time we woke up and told them it matters to us. I refuse to respect politicians, parties, journalists, or media outlets that continually lie to me to suit their agendas. I wish the American people would feel the same way. And I flat out refuse to let socialized medicine seep into this country, while every other country that has it has been trying for nearly a decade to get rid of it, under the guise of nothing but lies and half truths. We need to wake up, we need to realize that we’re being fed a diet of dishonesty from both parties in Washington, and we need to stop buying what they’re selling using false advertising. It’d be illegal if they sold us a car using these methods, it should be illegal when they’re selling the future of our families and our country.
Sources:
Here’s the Census Bureau report: http://www.census2010.gov/prod/2006pubs/p60-231.pdf
Here’s a good link to a news story from a business magazine that provides the best summary on the census report I referenced – http://www.businessandmedia.org/printer/2007/20070718153509.aspx
Heather, medicare is the program for the elderly and medicaid the program for the poor. There is health insurance in both programs. SSI is for survivors of deceased parents, severely disabled and students receiving special education services example the moderately mentally retarded.
I have all the charts at my office but the range of income certainly does NOT start at adjusted gross income of $45,000.
There is a large group of people and children who are not medically insured. The adult or adults may work part time in several minimum wage jobs. Or the adult and children are under insured. Or they have a not covered pre-existing condition or cannot afford the premiums of the policy they do have offered.
I do not want my public taxpayer money used for emergency room services when they get the flu, strep throat or a sprained arm. I most definitely want every American to have screening to identify at an earlier, treatable stage all kinds of diseases. I want children to have dental screenings in Headstart, vision screening by a school nurse when they enter the public school system.
I’m sorry this sounds rambling. The gist of it is the state of American health care is so extremely broken in so many places.I strongly agree with Jordan’s comment that the process of passing this was very wrong but the end result was promised in his campaign at all times and is not a surprise.
Cheryl – Thanks for the comment, but I’m sorry, it is Medicaid that covers children. From Medicaid’s website:
“Many groups of people are covered by Medicaid. Even within these groups, though, certain requirements must be met. These may include your age, whether you are pregnant, disabled, blind, or aged; your income and resources (like bank accounts, real property, or other items that can be sold for cash); and whether you are a U.S. citizen or a lawfully admitted immigrant. The rules for counting your income and resources vary from state to state and from group to group. There are special rules for those who live in nursing homes and for disabled children living at home.
Your child may be eligible for coverage if he or she is a U.S. citizen or a lawfully admitted immigrant, even if you are not (however, there is a 5-year limit that applies to lawful permanent residents). Eligibility for children is based on the child’s status, not the parent’s. Also, if someone else’s child lives with you, the child may be eligible even if you are not because your income and resources will not count for the child.”
Like I said, the qualifications are different from state to state. Your state may be different from the state guidelines I’m used to in Virginia. In Virginia, the guidelines for health coverage for children is quite lax, and as I said, the parents don’t even usually need to pay a co-pay. I know this not only from reading about it several years ago, but also from direct experience.
But all of this is beside the point. Medical coverage for children isn’t what I was complaining about being stuck into the stimulus bill. What was stuck into the stimulus bill IS directly against what Obama promised during his campaign. In every single Presidential debate, Barack Obama promised that none of his legislation, none of the Democrat’s legislation would “interfere with the doctor/patient relationship”, and that he would make certain that the government would never interfere with your doctor’s orders for your health. He has directly violated that promise by instead demanding in this stimulus bill that an entire department of government be created to evaluate every single order issued by every single doctor for every single patient, regardless of whether they’re on government-sponsored healthcare or not. So even if I’m out in the private market, paying through the nose for the best possible health coverage, the government can still decide that I can’t get the healthcare I’m paying for, the healthcare I need, the healthcare my Doctor deems necessary. Why? Because some non-medically-trained bureaucrat has decided those orders aren’t “fiscally responsible.” If my Doctor tries to work the system or rewrite that order, he can end up facing fines, the loss of his license, or outright imprisonment.
That is NOT healthcare for children, that isn’t even socialized medicine. THAT is a medical dictatorship and yes, I’m afraid that does directly contradict direct promises made by Barack Obama during the campaign. So saving the children aside, even universal healthcare aside, that’s what’s being done to us right now, in this country, by the Democrats, via that stimulus bill.
I agree that the state of the healthcare industry in this country is broken and has problems that must be fixed. But we can’t fix those problems by being dishonest about what the real problems are. You can’t solve a problem until you know the full extent of that problem! I don’t see why that’s such a controversial issue, or why it’s such a controversial idea to dare to ask for an open and honest discussion about the issues at hand, as opposed to them being rushed through without even having the opportunity to read the damn bill.
And furthermore, I also don’t see how we can solve our country’s healthcare problems by simply replacing them with a new set of problems. The fact still remains that socialized medicine has not worked in any of the countries in which it has been tried. I’ve experienced “treatment” given by the National Health Service in the United Kingdom – it was absolute hell and it put my life at risk, as has it put the lives of several of my close friends at risk. If socialized medicine truly worked so well, why is it that so many countries that are stuck with it have been trying to get rid of it for so many years? The UK has been trying to vote to get rid of the NHS and socialized medicine in general for nearly ten years now, but they’re just so entrenched in their own problems they don’t even know where to begin!
For goodness sake, we need to really look at this situation openly and honestly, free from party ties, so that we can actually objectively evaluate this situation before we leap into another set of giant problems. We need to learn from the mistakes of other countries, we need to recognize the dire situations they currently find themselves in, so that we don’t end up in the same hole that they’re still trying to dig themselves out of. I’m not saying our country doesn’t have problems with healthcare, I’m just trying to say, let’s look before we leap! I don’t see what’s so controversial, what’s so wrong, with that wish.
The fact still remains that socialized medicine has not worked in any of the countries in which it has been tried.
Life expectancy in countries with socialized medicine:
8 Israel 80.7
22 United Kingdom 79.4
25 Finland 79.3
37 Cuba 78.3
Life expectancy in US:
38 United States 78.2
Jimmy – There’s far more to the question of whether or not socialized medicine works than simply providing data on life expectancy. There’s also the matter of how much it’s costing the government, how efficiently it’s run, the ability of the country to staff doctors and nurses (there are massive nurse and doctor shortages in nearly every country with socialized medicine, because there’s just no incentive for people to get into medicine anymore), how well the people think it’s working, how many people die from easily treatable diseases and conditions, the ability to fund and expand medical research, and so much more. Life expectancy also depends on things besides just the mode by which the healthcare is paid for and managed. For instance, societal/cultural attitudes toward diet and exercise (something the United States is sorely lacking in at the moment.) So in other words, the data you provided has far too many variables to it which are – for the most part – unrelated to the form of healthcare that’s being debated right now, so it’s just not entirely applicable.
http://www.impulsecreations.net/catalog/doctor-who-adipose-plush-10-p-1011892.html
Just to sprinkle a little happiness in here.
I just read this today, and I’m infuriated and have a sinking feeling that I’m too late.
My girlfriend is from Sweden, and she tells me she doesn’t know a single person in any Scandinavian country that would trade their “socialized” health care system for ours. They consider the U.S. health care system “barbaric”.
Timothy – What’s so “barbaric” about the system that has brought about the vast majority of medical breakthroughs over the past 100 years? If this system is so barbaric, why is it that the world still flocks to our hospitals? Is it “barbaric” because we’re expected to pay for our own coverage? Sorry, but your Swedish girlfriend is still paying for her government-run healthcare – it’s called taxes, and Europeans pay at least twice what Americans pay in taxes every year. So she’s still paying for her healthcare, she just doesn’t get to choose how her taxes are spent. She doesn’t get to have as wide a range of choices as the average American does when it comes to doctors, hospitals, tests, providers, and so forth. So she’s still paying, but she’s given up her right to decide how that money is spent on her behalf. Even if her life is at stake, it won’t matter – it’s not up to her to decide anymore. She’s handed that decision over to someone else, someone who doesn’t even know her. So she’ll have to wait up to five times longer – at least – than the average American for tests, surgeries, even life-saving procedures. Because hey, medicine isn’t a limitless resource, and demand has to be tempered somehow. It’ll be tempered with her time, even if she’s unlucky enough to not have much time left before she’ll need a life-saving transfusion or an operation. If that supply doesn’t become available, if the government decides she’s not worth it, then too bad. She paid all those taxes for nothing and never got to choose how her money would be spent.
Sorry, but I hardly think it’s barbaric to retain control over my own life, my own right to self-determination, my own right to decide how my own money is spent when it comes to my health. I would much rather take care of that myself, than hand it over to a government that doesn’t know me, doesn’t know my situation, and couldn’t care less whether I lived or died. My health is worth everything in the world to me, but to the government? What do they care? They can take my taxes, which pays for my healthcare, but then deny me treatment to save my life? It’s happened to my friends in Europe, how is that not barbaric?
I want to retain that control over my own life. I want to retain that control over how my money is spent when it comes to my healthcare. I fail to see how that is barbaric.
Sure, there are people who aren’t as lucky as I am when it comes to having access to health insurance. I’m well aware of that fact and yes, it is truly sad. But there are already programs in place for people like that. I don’t see the sense in all of us giving up our freedom of choice and right to self-determination simply because of a small few who cannot afford it, especially when there are already programs in place to care for them. They system’s aren’t perfect, but they could be fixed without robbing everyone of their freedoms.
The bottom line is, the true number of people who are too poor to have access to health insurance is constantly hidden behind inflated statistics, sob stories, and lies. I’m not prepared to give up my freedom when the government won’t even tell me the truth about precisely how many people are chronically uninsured right now. Why would I trust that same government with my life when they’re using lies and propaganda to sell me a broken program that will rob me of my freedom?
Sorry, maybe I’m missing the point, but I hardly think it’s worthwhile to start tossing around insults. It won’t add to the debate, it won’t solve any problems, and it won’t get us any closer to understanding the situation at hand.
I think you did miss the point Heather. The U.S. has more doctors per capita than any other country in the world, we spend more per capita on health care, and yet we rank 37th in the world for quality of healthcare overall. We have higher infant mortality rates than many 3rd world countries. Babies routinely die in this country because parents simply cannot afford to give them proper care. Such a thing would NEVER happen in Sweden. Got the misfortune of having cancer? Diabetes? MS? Good luck finding an insurance company that will cover you for ANY amount of money! That, my dear, is barbaric. For those fortunate to have money, you can get great care here in the US. But for millions of Americans, it’s a matter of choice all right — choose to see the doctor, or choose to have enough food to eat for that month. You can call that “sad”. Swedes don’t deny ANYONE coverage. No wonder they consider us barbaric.
You talk about choice as if poverty and pre-existing health concerns are simply a choice. They aren’t. I hate to think of your situation Heather if your dad hadn’t been military. You’d be royally screwed. Why are you defending such a system?
It’s a little ironic you dissing Sweden, when they are the ones that diagnosed Dercums. Most Doctors here have never even heard of it, much less believe it’s real.
It’s pretty obvious you didn’t bother to even watch Sicko. You should.