Tonight Obama will engage the US in a "State of the Union" style address regarding the current, revised healthcare reform bill. Watch it.
This rant is a stream of conciousness style post from my Facebook page earlier. Fairly unedited.
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Disclaimer:
this is a rant... I apologize for partially formed thoughts, poor grammar, typos, etc.
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A nation should provide affordable care, or at the very least ensure that affordable care exists, for its citizens.
Most nations provide protection from external harm in the form of a military. Do those of you that oppose "paying for someone else's healthcare" as you like to phrase it, feel that the military shouldn't protect those that don't have a job? By your definition of citizenship the only duty a person need perform is pay taxes to be considered a citizen. Don't more citizens die every year from sickness versus those that are victims of terrorism or war?
Doesn't our country oversee, develop, and enforce standards in almost every aspect of industry & manufacturing?
What if that system had been a privatized, for profit, competition based system. A system that was rife with corruption, convolution, and driven by profit versus basic humanity.
Wouldn't we as citizens of that country demand that the standards of our workplace, the quality of our motorcycle helmets, the requirements for food handling at our favorite restaurant be handled by federally funded departments? I would.
The healthcare industry, mostly the pharmaceutical, sees the biggest profits when more of its *customers* are very unhealthy. How can this continue? This is almost worse than the tobacco industry. They're at least being slightly honest. They're not telling anyone they're making themselves healthier by using tobacco products.
Shouldn't prescription medications for some illnesses carry a warning label stating that the benefits provided by it could be acheived via other methods and behaviors? Such as diet, excercise? Or is that solely the job of the doctor? Right, the doctor we never go see... because it is way too expensive. In part because malpractice insurance is out of control for the doctors. Also because most of them have trouble getting paid by insurance companies and by individuals that have no insurance. Some doctors will give you a discount if you pay cash! They're overhead and cost of doing business is too high, too complicated, too much in the way of the oaths they took to remain.
At its core the problem with healthcare is a power struggle... one of money not human well-being. Insurance comanies should at least be as transparent in their intentions as banks. Right?
Bank Customer: Here. Hold my money. If I need it, I will take it. I'll pay your fees if I make a boo boo. You'll pay me some interest on profits you make by using/investing my money.
Bank: Yes. We'll do that. Thank you for choosing us as your bank. And the FDIC insures your money at this bank.
as opposed to this...
Health insurance customer: Here's some money. Pay my doctor if I need some services from them.
Health Insurance Company: I'm sorry. That procedure was coded as a 123w09 by your doctor. We are only responsible for paying 30% on a 123w09. Your doctor probably should have coded it a 123w00 but they knew that you would be resonsible for more of te cost and figured they could get the money from you much faster and easier than from us.
-or-
I'm sorry. The plan your employer picked for you does not cover the cost of the hearing aid, but we will pay for 90% of the cost of the appointment that determined you suffer from acute tenitis and have lost 35% of your hearing.
-and all the while-
We won't share any of the massive profits we make investing the money you give us.
I could go on.
So, if anyone (private or public insuree) can walk into a healthcare facility and expect to receive some decent, affordable level of care you will raise moral.
Raise moral and you will make your nation's citizen's a bit happier, and happier leads to healthier.
We're all In this together.
This quote from Elvis Costello's "All This Useless Beauty" loops in my mind whenever I think about this *issue*:
"And our leaders have feasts / On the backsides of beasts / They still think their the gods of antiquity..."
Legend:
our leaders = the privelaged
beasts = the average citizen