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~~Leo656~~ · 09-12-2009, 01:22 AM

This is really long, so I have to split it... sorry...

Part 1

Who even knows what to believe anymore. Some places you hear that people live longer and, on average, get better treatment for cancer and other things here in the U.S., and just as often you hear that the opposite is true, depending on who gives the numbers.

I do know there is a need for affordable health care here. I myself have struggled my whole life with severe sinus infections that sometimes last weeks, and not your little "stuffy nose" kinda thing, I'm talking completely bedridden, lose 25 lbs, spitting blood and coughing out softball-sized phlegm-bombs respiratory sickness. It's gotten less frequent as I've gotten older, but sometimes the severity is worse. Last year I spent a week on a steroid respirator before it cleared up. So it's safe to say I'm in favor of not having to pay $100 or more for a visit to a doctor, or $100 more for antibiotics that don't work much better or more quickly than Advil Cold & Sinus (plug).

Like many Americans, I do have access to health insurance, through my job, and like many, I choose to not use it. At $80 a week, it just does not fit into my budget right now. To my knowledge, no one at work except the two owners and the three secretaries get the insurance, because only they make enough to afford it.

By the way, if you wanna talk about a real social injustice, try figuring out how a phone-jockeying secretary for a moving company should make SO MUCH more money than they guys that actually break their bodies to pieces doing the job of tossing 500-lb furniture around. They're sweet girls, but c'mon.

But as usual, I digress. S'what I do.

All that said, I'm just not very trusting of the proposed reforms. In part, I'm a bit old-fashioned perhaps, but I just do not believe in government programs. I know it's kind of stupid and does not apply to everyone in every case, but I was raised with an old-school Irish mindset of "if you don't work, you don't eat, and if you want something, you pay for it, period". I don't even believe in welfare, and I have definitely qualified for it at some point over the last ten years, but I would rather bust my ass for the little bit that I have rather than say the government was paying my bills.

Just a bit of history about my own experiences with government programs: When my dad lost his job at Squibb pharmaceutical, we ended up on welfare for about five years starting when I was about seven. For various reasons I've never understood, we were constantly threatened with it being taken away, despite both my parents being out of work. Not willingly out of work, but there was in fact a recession early on during those glorious Clinton years. It got even better when my father, in addition to going into diabetic shock and almost dying, suffered a life-threatening heart attack that required major bypass surgery in which his heart was basically removed and drained while he was kept alive by machines. He's had about a dozen various surgeries since the first in 1993. When he applied for permanent disability, he was REJECTED numerous times on the grounds that he was in fact "not disabled enough". In 1997, he was finally approved, and in-between he worked off the books delivering pizzas and washing dishes in hot restaurant kitchens for a paltry $60 a week, despite doctors advisory that he should not work anymore, ever, that he required ungodly amounts of medication from blood-thinners to painkillers, and that he should avoid places of stress and extreme heat.

And yet, our next door neighbor was getting disability coverage of about $1000 a month and had been for years. She suffered from migraines.

How, I wondered, can a man who almost died repeatedly of diabetes and heart disease be denied government disability payments, while a woman in her mid-30s essentially gets all her bills paid by Uncle Sam b/c she gets bad headaches? And I still have the same concerns today when it comes to any health care that is gov't funded, run, or organized: Who decides who gets what, and why?

(Continued)

09-12-2009, 01:22 AM	#48
~~Leo656~~ Banned Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: nWo Country Posts: 27,703	This is really long, so I have to split it... sorry... Part 1 Who even knows what to believe anymore. Some places you hear that people live longer and, on average, get better treatment for cancer and other things here in the U.S., and just as often you hear that the opposite is true, depending on who gives the numbers. I do know there is a need for affordable health care here. I myself have struggled my whole life with severe sinus infections that sometimes last weeks, and not your little "stuffy nose" kinda thing, I'm talking completely bedridden, lose 25 lbs, spitting blood and coughing out softball-sized phlegm-bombs respiratory sickness. It's gotten less frequent as I've gotten older, but sometimes the severity is worse. Last year I spent a week on a steroid respirator before it cleared up. So it's safe to say I'm in favor of not having to pay $100 or more for a visit to a doctor, or $100 more for antibiotics that don't work much better or more quickly than Advil Cold & Sinus (plug). Like many Americans, I do have access to health insurance, through my job, and like many, I choose to not use it. At $80 a week, it just does not fit into my budget right now. To my knowledge, no one at work except the two owners and the three secretaries get the insurance, because only they make enough to afford it. By the way, if you wanna talk about a real social injustice, try figuring out how a phone-jockeying secretary for a moving company should make SO MUCH more money than they guys that actually break their bodies to pieces doing the job of tossing 500-lb furniture around. They're sweet girls, but c'mon. But as usual, I digress. S'what I do. All that said, I'm just not very trusting of the proposed reforms. In part, I'm a bit old-fashioned perhaps, but I just do not believe in government programs. I know it's kind of stupid and does not apply to everyone in every case, but I was raised with an old-school Irish mindset of "if you don't work, you don't eat, and if you want something, you pay for it, period". I don't even believe in welfare, and I have definitely qualified for it at some point over the last ten years, but I would rather bust my ass for the little bit that I have rather than say the government was paying my bills. Just a bit of history about my own experiences with government programs: When my dad lost his job at Squibb pharmaceutical, we ended up on welfare for about five years starting when I was about seven. For various reasons I've never understood, we were constantly threatened with it being taken away, despite both my parents being out of work. Not willingly out of work, but there was in fact a recession early on during those glorious Clinton years. It got even better when my father, in addition to going into diabetic shock and almost dying, suffered a life-threatening heart attack that required major bypass surgery in which his heart was basically removed and drained while he was kept alive by machines. He's had about a dozen various surgeries since the first in 1993. When he applied for permanent disability, he was REJECTED numerous times on the grounds that he was in fact "not disabled enough". In 1997, he was finally approved, and in-between he worked off the books delivering pizzas and washing dishes in hot restaurant kitchens for a paltry $60 a week, despite doctors advisory that he should not work anymore, ever, that he required ungodly amounts of medication from blood-thinners to painkillers, and that he should avoid places of stress and extreme heat. And yet, our next door neighbor was getting disability coverage of about $1000 a month and had been for years. She suffered from migraines. How, I wondered, can a man who almost died repeatedly of diabetes and heart disease be denied government disability payments, while a woman in her mid-30s essentially gets all her bills paid by Uncle Sam b/c she gets bad headaches? And I still have the same concerns today when it comes to any health care that is gov't funded, run, or organized: Who decides who gets what, and why? (Continued)