I obviously have an opinion on health care reform, and now seems like a good time to jump in.
To the people who say our health care system is the best in the world right now: You’re wrong. It is not. No one but you believes that. You believe that because it is not factual, as the facts state otherwise.
Why do you believe it? Because of people like Glenn Beck:
Most people against health care reform fall into a few catagories: The blind, who really have no idea what they are talking about. The people who are against their taxes going up, who don’t understand that they save money because the money going into taxes comes out of no longer having to pay an insurance company because they are FOR PROFIT, which means it will ALWAYS cost more through them. And the people against giving free health care to illegal immigrants and people who don’t really have to pay for it. This I can kind of agree with, but it doesn’t really trump the fact that this is better for all of us.
Look at the facts: Every other first-class country that has a national health care system has lower health costs, better success rates, and people are overall much happier with it.
I don’t like the bill in it’s current form because I believe a single-payer system is best. Health care should be nationalized. This might sound socialist or anti-capitalism, but think about it: Do we call ourselves socialist for having a national military? Should we outsource that to 4 or 5 companies trying to profit off it? It is bad enough that some companies profit heavily off our wars (like, say, Halliburton…). For a country as advanced as we are, health and lives should not be for profit! People are denied coverage for serious issues so that these companies can make more money! Future generations will laugh at us for actually allowing people to make money off the suffering of other human beings! We are losing our humanity and people are rallying against health care reform because they were told to by conservative talking heads, who are funded by the very insurance companies trying to stay in business to keep profiting off of you! If we are as amazing as we think we are, then how is health care not considered a basic human right?
While I don’t like the bill, sadly I feel it is a necessary first step to transform health care. I wouldn’t even call the bill all that good, but without it we will never move towards a system where people are taken care of without being taken advantage of.
And now, a few quick links:
First off, this takes you to the comment section of a website which has “rated” how both Republicans and Democrats have been lying or telling the truth about health care reform. Guess which side is basically lying 3 quarters of the time? The important comment comes from a man in his 60s who is self-employed, like me, as is his wife. He is in good health, his wife has a pacemaker. The best policy they can find is $915/month per person with a $4000 deductible, which means he is paying $15,000 PER YEAR, PER PERSON, BEFORE BLUE SHIELD PAYS ANYTHING. He has to travel to Thailand for 3 weeks out of the year because that is the only place it is affordable to get health care coverage. He had a surgery, including biopsy, for $100 in Thailand, yet the 15 minute visit with a specialist here cost him $250 and the surgery would have been thousands. Medical tourism is a booming industry because our nation’s health care is apparently “so great” that people are flocking to go elsewhere. Just Google “Medical Tourism” and you’ll see.
What kills me is, the conservatives say Obama wants to kill your grandmother. First of all, this is taken completely out of context. What is included in the bill is something that your current health care ALREADY OFFERS (and unlike Obama, they do want to kill your grandmother to not have to spend any more money keeping her alive, yet somehow Medicare which is GOVERNMENT RUN seems to be working just fine keeping her alive). What it says is that you can receive consultation about end of life issues. For example, what about things such as being kept alive by machines? At what point do you want your family to pull the plug? These are important issues. This is not euthanasia of old people. Obama at a town hall meeting recently said something to the effect of taking issue with being painted as someone who wants to pull the plug on your grandmother. You could hear the “Are you people really fucking serious? You fucking dipshits think I became President to kill your grandmother?” in his voice.
Yet, I think that man’s comment shows that really, we are already trying to kill our old people. 50% of bankruptcies in the U.S. are because people cannot afford their medical bills and go broke. 50%! The leading cause of bankruptcy isn’t the economy, it isn’t the housing crisis, it isn’t small businesses going belly-up… it is health care! And we have the “best health care system in the world?” Do people even think before they speak?
Speaking of Obama at his Montana town hall, here is a someone trying hard to spin it. I’ve decided to take out the garbage and get the message down to a basic level:
“Obama said he just lost his Grandmother a year ago and therefore can relate to what Americans go through. Since I have to find a way to spin this, I’m going to point out that her health care was different than this proposed future health care for the very fact that it doesn’t exist yet, and say that her health care would have been better. I want you to live with the same health care you want us to live with, and despite the fact that you campaigned on trying to get Americans the same level of health care that members of the government… wait… oh, well anyway, I’d like to continue spending more for worse health care coverage because all I see is “taxes going up” and don’t consider the whole picture that I’d be paying less for better when you take it in context that I would no longer have to pay for regular insurance.”
Next up, we have the brilliant “Heil Hitler!” defense. This is a great debate tactic: Whenever someone is making sense and actually using facts about another country and their health care system to make a point, you say something antisemitic. In this case, a Jewish man was trying to explain how Israel takes care of it’s soldiers and respects them on Memorial Day (Here here! This is something we need to do too!), and that their citizens do very well with their health care system. So this woman reverts to yelling “Heil Hitler!” because… well, I guess what he was saying was dead on and since she had nothing to actually retort with that would have said why what he was saying was untrue or bad for America, she insulted him. And then when he gives an example of it costing him $8000 to stay in the E.R. for 2 hours (another shining example of our health care system), she rubs her eyes as if she is crying and mocks him.
At what point do we start revoking the privilege to vote for certain people?
Here, we have a woman asking Barney Frank why he supports a nazi policy while having a picture of Obama dressed as Hitler. Apparently, I need to pay more attention to Barney Frank after watching his response. While I would have appreciated a little more “here is why this is not a Nazi policy and why you are an idiot,” his line about it being a tribute to the First Amendment was brilliantly sarcastic.
So what have we learned?
First of all, most other countries (even the capitalist, non-socialist ones!) that have a National Health Care system show that the people living their get better health care for less money, and the population generally approves of those health care systems more than we do here in America with what we currently have.
Asking for something to be nationalized does not make you a fascist, socialist, communist, or the next Hitler. Our military is already nationalized – some things need to be, otherwise we would have no need for nations and we would all be owned by corporations.
If you only listen to the idiots on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC rather than seeking out the facts about the bill (and hell, maybe you can even read it to understand it in context and not just pick out sentences here and there to spin), or even just looking at comparables around the world, then what right do you have to actually have a say on this matter?
Health care should not be for profit. These are peoples’ lives we are talking about. At what point did we become so crazy that we are defending systems that harm the very people they are supposed to take care of so that they can make more money for their shareholders? Do we not have any humanity at all in America?
Lastly, I want to say I don’t hate conservatives, I just think too many of them are proving they cannot think for themselves. I was e-mailed recently a great article about why Texas is weathering this economic crisis without much trouble due to strict government spending, keeping government small, and letting businesses come here and do their thing to make the economy great. This is why I love Republicans and conservatives – I align strongly with their ideals on money. I am very pro-small business, and I think we should lower taxes on big corporations with the exception of an outsourcing tax (if you are going to get more money to reinvest into your business, the reinvesting better be in America! Stop shipping money by the crate to Mexico and Asia!) The only issue I would say is that more money needs to be spent on education here in Texas. The schools are underfunded, and while Texas is doing fine in the recession, parents here have to buy things like toilet paper and glue to stock the school’s supply closet, at which point it is rationed to who needs it. Thus, you are buying things not specifically for your child, and the taxes SHOULD be covering things like paper and toiletries.
So I am really not a liberal all the way around – I just think it is criminal how we take care of our citizens in regards to health care. In the end though, it is really really hard to want to side with a group of people who do things like yell “Heil Hitler!” at Jews. I’m all for dark humor, but the thing about comedy is it is not serious. That was a serious statement being made to insult a man who was giving an educated explanation about his views due to lack of (pick any or all) values, principle, ethics, morality, common sense, an educated response, and/or decency and respect for a fellow human being. Using fear and bigotry as a tactic to oppose a law is beyond low, and it isn’t only this woman. Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, so on and so forth, have all muttered things to this effect.
The only defense I will give to Glenn Beck is that he should not lose advertisers over calling Obama a racist. That is his opinion, fair enough, and while it can’t really be proven either way, that doesn’t necessarily make HIM racist for calling the President out. What bothers me is that I feel he shouldn’t even be on TV or have advertisers in the first place because he purposely misleads America on behalf of the people paying his paycheck (as shown in the video above, it is amazing what happens when you go from CNN to Fox News), but to use this reason as the excuse doesn’t fly with me. I suppose it is a means to an end, but do things for the right reasons, not because of people confusing what racism actually is.
