Please forgive me. I'm gonna jump back to the beginning of the thread.
Health care!
The basic: I'm for health care reform and a public option.
Why?- Personal Experience
- Basic Logic Applied to Workforce Statistics
- Basic Logic Applied to Economics
- The Appeal of Compromise
- A Desire to Efficiently Fulfill My Sense of Moral Obligation
Details:
1. Personal Experience
I would be dead right now if Cambridge, Massachusetts didn't have a generous public health policy. I was a resident of Cambridge without employment, not enrolled in a school, and sick with a debilitating illness that took me 2 years to heal ENOUGH that I could begin to work. Seven years later, I have gone from working part time to working full time in a salaried position and setting up my own business on the side. A few weeks ago, I cut free of my salaried position and am now a full time self-employed small business owner.
AMERICAN DREAM FOR THE WIN!!
The people of Cambridge and Massachusetts, through their state taxes, saved my life by ensuring that the medication I was prescribed in the emergency room was available to me. With their help, I got to the point where I bought that stupidly expensive medication myself, and now, I'm a completely functional member of the American Economic Machine.
For everyone that takes advantage of the system, there is someone who uses the system as a necessary stepping stool. Not all medical issues are fatal.
I'm currently un-insured. I'll be going to the doctor tomorrow b/c my left eye has a retinal tear. I can afford the visit out of pocket, but if there's something the doc's gotta do to fix my eye so i don't lose my sight? I'll have to think about it. If it's immediately necessary, I'll put it on my credit card. If not, I'll go back to the doctor when my vision starts sparking and throwing up spots again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roseangelo
Personally, I would rather pay for my own broken arm than collectively help pay for everyone else's.
|
My family was freaking rich as hell when I was kid. It doesn't take much to go from 'we sent our daughter to Europe twice in high school' to 'that daughter has $12.00 to her name. Period. Hope she likes ramen.' Right now, you can pay for your broken arm. Will you always be able to? What if it wasn't $1200 for arm, but $200,000 for your cervical cancer?
Insurance is all about paying some one
just in case you get sick. Why pay people who are not legally bound to help you if you do get sick?
Reform would force insurance companies to uphold their end of their contracts. You pay in, then you WILL get taken care of.
Having a public option gives folks who cannot afford to 'pay in to' a shot at the same things private insurers offer (but may or may not deliver on).
As to you paying to chip in on that public option? You already pay for hospital treatments for people like me who stumble into emergency rooms and cannot legally be denied care. What you don't pay for in most states is my medication, which turns me from a drooling drain on society to a functioning, tax-paying, small business-owning, EMPLOYMENT-GENERATING member of these United States.
Quote:
Originally Posted by odupianist
...I agree that prices are too high, and I'm sure people out there need help. I work hard and have worked hard to earn the money I'm making...
|
Yes. They do need help. Hell, you work hard. You know how it is. You've earned the money you're making. Why would you want to continue to spend it in an insurance market that can set its own prices? Drug companies hyper-inflate their costs. Insurance companies pad their bottom line. You're not guaranteed coverage if you do get sick. Why pay for that?!
If you're gonna keep your money--why not pay a little more in taxes and a lot LESS in insurance premiums and deductibles--with the added bonus of getting what you pay for? If you end up ahead, that's what helps your family, right? Call it
enlightened self-interest.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leo656
...So as far as health care or ANY gov't aid, I want proof that every legal citizen would be treated equally based on need, regardless if they were black or white or purple. ...Plus, like a lot of people, I'm very skeptical about claims that illegal immigrants would not be covered under any gov't plan. ... I tend to not want anybody in this country having to pay higher taxes for programs to help out people that, legally, shouldn't be here...
|
I'm sorry you had so many terrible experiences with public programs. I had my share of bumps when I moved from Massachusetts to North Carolina and again to Maryland. Some states have CRAP-TASTIC program administration. North Carolina couldn't decide if I was allowed to see specialists. Maryland couldn't decide where or not I qualified for poverty-discounts from pharmaceutical companies b/c big-pharma kept changing their minimums.
I don't know how New Jersey compares, but if you have a system that's helping some people--even selectively--I would want to correct and codify that system so that it's applied as evenly and fairly across the entire country as humanly possible.
I'm not libertarian. I do believe that what's wrong with our system are not the programs themselves, but the way they are being run. I believe that you can work within our system to fix what's wrong. (Though Congress is testing my faith in that hypothesis).
I agree that immigrants who come here should do it legally. I agree that proof of citizenship or foreign insurance should be required for not only for patients seeking care, but of companies paying workers.
(Mini-Rant: If you wanna stop illegal immigrants from finding work in the US, there need to be harsher criminal penalties for hiring them. It's currently cheaper for companies to pay a fee if they get caught with the wrong kind of workers than it is to pay at market rate to legal citizen. Punish the law-breaking companies. Not just ambitious illegal workers.) I agree that the health care system should be applied equally, not just to people without 'pre-existing conditions.' Whether those conditions are medical or racial. (Me, I was born with a pre-existing 'hispanic' condition.)
2. Basic Logic Applied to Workforce Statistics.
You want people working and generating taxable income? Make them healthy enough to DO work. See my first point.
Also, working people can afford birth control, go see a doctor rather than pass along swine flu, and more readily go back to school. All things that improve welfare numbers, not make them grow.
Quote:
Originally Posted by odupianist
On the whole though, there will be people taking advantage of it by not taking care of themselves (much like the US welfare system). There's a big difference between paying for someone who's going to continue to have health problems (for whatever reason, cigarettes, unhealthy eating, lack of exercise, etc) and paying for the roads that benefit us all to help us get where we need to.
|
It's easier to eat healthy, care about exercise, and give up smoking when you're employed, not strung out about where next month's rent will come from, able to afford vegetables and real meal rather than ramen, and stable enough to make healthy choices for yourself. You can't force people to make those changes, but you can give them the option.
Many people will take it!
3. Basic Logic Applied to Economics
Re-read all of Anarky's & Katie's posts. This post is already too long and they've said it better than I could.
4. The Appeal of Compromise
The public option IS compromise.
I WANT a single-payer system. I will settle for the chance to have what insured people have. Health care that doesn't put me and my family out of our home--oh wait. It HAS. I'm moving at the end of the month because we can't make rent anymore.
I WANT a public option NOW. I will settle for one that's phased in slowly. I can live with family for a while. I will earn my way out of their house. I have before. I can do it again. It'll be harder if my left eye requires surgery, but I work hard, and I will repay my debts.
I understand that things cannot be done suddenly or the stock market will panic again and we'll all be screwed. I know it takes time to develop a completely new program. I know it's important that the administration be set up properly. I will compromise. I can wait. For a little while.
5. A Desire to Efficiently Fulfill My Sense of Moral Obligation
Churches and private groups cannot do enough with voluntary donations of money or volunteer efforts. If you want to help as many people as need to be helped across the country, we need something bigger than a local soup kitchen.
This is why the government builds roads. You don't leave those up to neighborhood associations.
Heck, even leaving much of health care to the states means that folks like Leo get the ****-end of the stick in New Jersey and I get the run-around in Maryland, but in Massachusetts they're saving lives! Patchwork and partial is not enough.
Consistent, Legal, and EQUAL care must be taken to take care of not 'those poor people,' but ME and others like me whose biggest hurdle to being productive is not welfare-reliance, but our own bodies.
People helped me. I want to know that help is still there, no matter where I live--and I need to know that I can PAY IT BACK both monetarily and morally. Not to some credit card company with stupidly high interest rates, but to others who are right where I was: ready to work and under a heap of health-related issues and debt.