Fresh on the heels of having seen Sicko, the new documentary on health care by Michael Moore, I am horrified by America's lack of free health care. It was demostrated how France, Canada, Britain, and even Cuba has universal free health care. In these countries you don't need a health insurance, you don't need anything when you're sick. You just go to the doctor. Medicine is obscenly cheap in these places, but here it is the other way around. When a person gets sick, they just have to deal with it on their own when they don't have health insurance. Even when they do have it, the co-pays and deductibles are a nightmare. I am living in this situation as we speak, so I have a full reality of how ridiculous this health system is here in America.
Should we have universal health care in America? Why or why not?
Absolutely. As many have said here, it's nothing short of a survival issue for some people. The catch is that you do not know when you are going to be that next person.
If you disagree with this assessment, then ask yourself this question: Do you believe that someone's profit is more important than your life?
This came about in the 90s under Clinton didn't it? I don't remember any pharm commercials before I left on my mission in 1998. Now they are everywhere. I'm in favor of blocking these also, and not just because I hate hearing the word "erection" while I'm trying to eat my dinner.
And knowing that every young male in America knows that it's a bad thing for an erection to last for more than four hours.
Another potential problem I can see with universal health care is the fights that will arise on what is covered. I can only imagine the debates when people start discussing using tax dollars to pay for abortions, birth control, etc. Ugh. I dread the thought of it.
So, you believe that your tax dollars should dictate the personal lives of others?
Kinda like the medical insurance companies are doing with people's lives?
I think of doctors as in the same category with teachers and firefighters--they're a national resource. Everybody needs them, and a healthy and safe population is good for the country overall. So, it makes sense to me that doctors should have the same protections and endorsement as teachers, firefighters, police officers, etc. That way they can spend their time and effort serving their community instead of worrying about what the hospitals and insurance companies are doing this year and how to get as much money as possible from their patients.
Oh. My. God. Post of the Week nominee right there, ladies and gentlemen. :bow:
About the only thing I can say here that hasn't been said by many others here (frubals to fullyveiled and Booko!) is that I work in a cemetery.
And I am damn sick of watching people being buried who would still be here with their families and loved ones and parents and siblings and children and lovers if only they were millionaires or billionaires or had health insurance. One woman, who's daughter just died of cancer that could have been treated if only in the three jobs that girl held they gave her insurance, backed into my car in the parking lot of the cemetery office and just got out and sobbed as I held her. Just remember that next time you're sick or injured and blessed with health insurance that won't drop you. That's not your distraught family members. That's six feet of dirt that isn't over you.
I just don't understand how people can be so nonchalant when other people are suffering. Until it happens to them, I suppose. I would happy endure a tax raise if it meant my fellow Americans weren't dying for being poor.
Quite possibly the best defense of raising taxes that I have ever heard.
Do you know how much the tax raise associated with these proposed plans will be, or are they not going to be that transparent?
1. Read the above quoted post by Khalila.
2. Tax increases don't necessarily have to be given to everyone. They can just as easily be given primarily--if not entirely--to the rich, who can very easily afford them.
IF the government does this, I would prefer a seperate tax (kind of like Social Security and Medicare) so that people can see the amount that is coming out of their paycheck each month to pay for the service. I would also want the program to sustain itself from only those tax dollars.
We need more transparency in our tax system. I don't trust congress to manage my money anymore. Anyone who does is a fool. I'm sick of giving my money to the government without them having to be accountable to the people for how it is spent.
1. Do you believe that any increase in tax should be spread on the middle and lower classes, and not just the super-rich?
2. Do you believe that corporations are not corrupt?
Would a socialized health care system mean that the government has a database of all our health issues? This could raise some interesting privacy issues.
Are you aware that corporations have already engaged in the practice of sharing some of your personal information?
Junk mail--how did you think they know where you live?
That electronic coupon you get at the checkout line in the grocery store--how do they know to give you a coupon for that particular item?
