Health Care Reform – Does Anyone Care?
The health care debate rages on and on and I’m wondering if anyone really cares much anymore. It’s basically you and me against the corporate insurance world, Big Pharma and their lobbyists. Anything that has a snowball’s chance of passing both the House and Senate is likely to be some watered-down reform that almost certainly will not be any godsend to the American people. That’s if anything passes at all.
Many Republicans call it socialism. Well, many of these naysaying politicians have no problem with the premium socialized medical insurance and drug benefits they enjoy. They just don’t want you and I to have the same perks. Did you know that Congressmen enjoy their own on-site walk-in clinic staffed with doctors and nurses right there on Capitol Hill? They pay around $500 a year for this service. We’d be lucky to pay $500 a month.
It’s always struck me that in a country so incredibly wealthy as ours, everybody could and should be covered by decent health care. I believe it is our right, not a privilege. Why not just expand Medicare to cover us all? It will never happen, but something has to change. Medicare is the gigantic white elephant in the room because if things progress the way they are, every dollar of government money will eventually go toward caring for us, the aging Baby Boomers. The rate of Alheimer’s Disease alone is skyrocketing and doubling every 15 years or so.
Health care for one and all would surely save a fantastic sum of money in the long run. The scores of millions without insurance often wait until they are in dire straits, then go to the only health care provider left to them: the emergency departments of hospitals all around our once great land. That is, by far, the very most expensive health care known to mankind. If these folks were covered, they would tend to get care earlier on in their disease cycle and have a much better chance of recovery at far greater savings than is now possible for them. Also, they might be more inclined to seek preventative care, again at much greater savings.
I fear, heck I’m conceding, that whatever may pass as health care reform will continue to fatten the already plump insurance industry and Big Pharma (remember Bush’s great trillion-dollar boondoggle giveaway with his maniacal Medicare prescription drug plans and all the subsequent confusion that followed?). There are just too many competing parties for this to ever give the American people what they so rightly deserve: decent health care and medicines at affordable prices.
There’s always the agrument that government will only botch things up. Well, what about Medicare and Social Security? Those have seemed to be pretty successful programs, to put it mildly. I am reminded of a placard my father saw at one of the Tea Party rallies on TV that said: “Get government out of Medicare!” Well, if it weren’t for the government, we wouldn’t even have Medicare! This kind of ignorance by those who would benefit most is simply mind-boggling. But, the fear mongers out there, the talking heads who want to scare you out of what would be in your best interests by using the “S” word, Socialism, are only looking to line their own pockets and those of their constituents who contribute so heavily to politicians’ campaigns.
I wonder what it’s going to take to really make a difference in health care reform? Just stay healthy?! Maybe we could get vouchers for fruits and vegetables and a tax break if we quit smoking and drinking.
With the economy in shambles and many losing their jobs, their retirement savings (what numbskulls thought 401k’s were a good idea so they could go belly up thanks to unregulated derivatives trading based on fraudulent and toxic subprime mortgages?), their homes, and their overall sense of pride and security, it’s no wonder that there’s a prevailing mood of despair and hopelessness. The American people deserve a break, but it doesn’t appear they’ll be getting one in the foreseeable future. There ain’t no “public” in this health care option.
Yes we do care. We care for the 86% of americans who like their health care that they have now. We have affordable health care and Pharma. We have access to quality medical providers for this. What we don’t want is to wait 2 years to see our doctors so that they can counsel us on how to end our life when we become senior citizens. We don’t need 460 billion taken from medicare. We don’t need 1.5 trillion in new taxes upon us during a recession. If the goverment takes over health care the goverment will control over 52% of U.S. businesses. Then we will be an official SOCIALIST STATE. But you being a RINO are too misinformed and politically incorrect on all issues. You are no different then SCOZZAFAVA NY-23 and will meet the same result as her.
Comment by Paul and Alexis Roth — December 8, 2009 @ 11:10 pm