It seems to me that federally funded health-care is an awful lot like this:
You can’t fit health insurance into your budget?
No problem. We’ll do it for you. We’ll take the money from you, via taxes, in order to spend it for you on a little something we’ll call “health-care.”
But we get to make the rules– you know– who gets to be taken care of and who just isn’t worth the effort.
Also, if you chose to have sex, but then don’t want the baby, we’ll call that health-care and pay to have your baby killed.
For the record, I am in the category of people who can’t seem to fit health insurance into the budget. So I know what it feels like to be “uninsured.”
Also for the record, I have taken my uninsured baby to the ER and paid out-the-nose for it.
However, I am still alive to tell about it. I broke the payment up into affordable monthly bills, and did it.
They took care of my baby, and charged a lot of money for it, but I am so thankful that I had that ER to take my son to in the first place. Not everyone in the world has that.
There are so many, many flaws to the health-care bill. But first and foremost, I would just like to question the average American like myself, with this:
Do you seriously want someone else trying to fit health-care into your budget when you already can’t afford it?
3 Responses to “maybe I’m being overly simplistic.”
I understand where you are coming from. And the bill is extremely flawed. I don’t want the government to allow abortions, let alone pay for them with my money. However, I support a government option because I believe it is our job to take care of those who are out of options and have to set up monthly payments for something that should cost little to nothing for them- just like those of us who are lucky enough to have health insurance. Because the reality is people need more health care than ER visits. People get sick. They get cancer. They get hurt. Pregnancies go wrong. And that is expensive. And while the bill is flawed, people need help. We need other options and I am willing to pay for those who don’t have insurance like I do. Actually, I think a nation is measured by how they take care of their people who can’t afford such luxuries, who are oppressed and who are alien. Maybe I am just being too simple. And I am not arguing, just talking.
hugs.
I am not into the government health care plan either, but hadn’t thought of it quite that way before, Heather. Thanks for your thoughts.
I appreciate Ashley’s point about helping those who can’t help themselves, but the problem I have with it is that people won’t have the option to say “no, thanks” to that help whether they need it or not. If I understand it correctly, everyone will be required to be part of the government insurance program.
Ashley & Andrea- that’s what I have been led to believe as well: that the government “option” won’t really be an option. That you can keep your private insurance as long as you don’t adjust your plan (ie have a baby or anything normal like that). If you do want to change your plan, you have to switch to the government’s, and if you opt for no insurance at all then you’re really in legal trouble.
That doesn’t sound like a whole lot of options to me.
Basically, I disagree with the underlying assumption that health *insurance* is a basic human right. Sure, the health care system and health insurance industry is very, very flawed at times.
That’s why we, the people, need to stop giving our money to insurance companies that misuse it and negotiate with hospitals to lower our costs and spread out the fees.
I am not being naively idealistic here– I know many people, including myself, who have successfully done this. I was able to negotiate with Blue Cross Blue Shield to pay for my home birth 3+ years ago! My parents use an “insurance” company that is non-profit and works by way of Christians sharing each other’s medical expenses (you still have a set monthly payment, but you get a newsletter with prayer requests and opportunities to give additionally if you want to).
I think it IS naive to hand over something as messy as health insurance to the federal government and expect it to actually work, let alone work better than what we have now.
So– two things: health insurance is not a basic human right (so it’s not the government’s job). We can make the right change happen if we fuel our passion for good and affordable health care into the right channels.
And Ashley, I could not agree with you more on our national responsibility to the poor and oppressed. But I believe that responsibility falls to the individuals and grass-roots movements and non-profits. We have only to look at the welfare system to see how well the government “helps” the impoverished.