I have been thinking about health care lately -- go figure -- and I cannot for the life of me figure out why a person would be opposed to universal coverage for all.
I suppose I sort of get it, if you are happily covered by good insurance that you've never really needed. And I understand (although disagree with) the fear that insurance provided by the government would be inefficient at best and corrupt at worst. And I am familiar (although in disagreement) with objections based on opposing social entitlements. We've heard quite a few voices against the public option citing these and other concerns related to covering everyone.
As an aside, since our country already has a public, albeit not universal,option --Medicare -- we can see evidence of how it works. My own family was recently the beneficiary of the public option: Last Spring, my father, who has a private plan but also has Medicare because of his age, was in a serious accident while riding his bicycle. He was able to receive the care he needed without going broke. Had he needed to rely solely on a limited private plan, severely breaking his pelvis, which was already ordeal enough, could have been financially catastrophic for my folks. What I really want to know is, who could object to that protection?
But here's who I want to hear from: the uninsured, or underinsured, person, who has gotten sick, who is unable to access care because he or she cannot afford it, and who is physically suffering and may even die from a lack of medical care that would otherwise address their health issues...and who is opposed to universal health care. And if you exist, please, please, explain to me why you oppose an option that would enable you to recover from your illness and live a healthy life. Or if not that person, then someone who loves that person, and is still opposed to universal health care.
What do you say to counter the notion that no one should die because they can't afford care and no one should go broke because they get sick?
I don't think anyone else could ever convince me that an argument against universal health care even makes sense; I have yet to hear, in all the cacophony of fear and confusion, a single good reason why citizens in the richest country on earth should suffer and even die because they cannot afford insurance in a system whose costs are out of control, artifically high, and ass-backwards. If you suffer under the current system and still have rational reasons for opposing the public option, then YOU are the person I want to talk to. You are the person who might help me understand this debate.
I'm 100% certain you will not convince me to change my own mind, but I am desperate to gain some insight into what the other side could possibly be thinking.
Are you out there? Tell me why.
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5 comments:
Now I have the song stuck in my head...
Monica, if you have not already seen it, pop over to The More, The Messier and read the Canadian lady's comment about health reform in the U.S.
Careful, here - I think you are confusing universal coverage and public option. It is possible to have universal coverage with no public option - France and Germany (and maybe Japan?) do it. I'm not against public option, per se; but a lot of people think that we can't have universal coverage without it. Not true. What we need is much better regulation of our health insurance companies, for starters...
Suburban Correspondent,
Thank you for clarifying about universal hc vs. public option. I was dimly aware that I might be confusing the two -- even sent this post to a few people before posting it, to see if there were things I should clean up.
I will read more so I can understand more. I am definitely for universal coverage...will work on understanding the different ways that can happen.
Your post was great on this topic.
Follow the money. The primary opposition to government health care is led by the insurance companies. It is they who have made it appear that more Americans oppose government financing of health care when in fact the great majority of us not only have no objection but welcome such programs as we have already welcomed Medicare and the VA system. The insurance CEO's who contribute generously, obscenely so, to such influential politicians like Senator Grassley and his Republican pals, as well as to the Blue Dog Democrats, are pulling the strings in Washington and will fight and spend to make sure that their profits are protected, and the public option threatens that. One can only hope that Obama has the courage of Lyndon Johnson and FDR and puts in place the kind of protection that he promised in his campaign. Our system is a disgrace, and we can only dream of the day that we might rise to the moral equivalent of Costa Rica and the Netherlands. And for that matter, every single industrialized country in the world. Except us.
Pubmeister
Go Pubmeister! (aka "dad")
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