Wow, I'm surprised we've been through a whole page without a fight starting. But the BYC is great for that. I'll lay out what I think too, and I hope no one gets mad.
I'm pro universal healthcare and realize it's never going to happen. And I'm sorry to be negative about it, but Mr. Obama's plan is not going to fix anything for me or my family. I may get government healthcare, but it's going to cost me just as much as the coverage I have now and I'm sure that I'll still have to fight to get things paid for.
Arguments that other nations' healthcare systems have problems are like the pot calling the kettle black. Yeah, they have problems. But we have worse problems in my opinion. Every time I go to the doctor, I get a massive bill. I'm enslaved to an employer that is unethical because if I quit my job, my family won't have coverage. This doesn't sound like freedom to me. Yes, the government is notoriously inefficient, but my biggest point is that my health, or my lack of health, is nothing for any company to profit from. And profit they do. The way they profit is by charging me monthly payments for a service they never provide. I have paid more for my health care since I got insurance than I did when I was uninsured. The only thing that keeps me from cutting it off is fear of a major accident or disease. And if I did have something happen to me, I know they wouldn't cover it anyway. I would probably be bankrupted by their refusal to cover an itemized list of expenses, just like so many other American families, because I don't have a MIL who works in the industry to help me fight them. And I can't afford a lawyer on retainer to chase them down for every thing they say they won't pay. My husband went to the ER because a miniscule sliver of metal from a construction site flew into his eye when he was riding home from work, and the insurance company wouldn't pay their portion. We don't really know how they figure that doesn't fall under their responsibility.
All this to say that I wish we weren't as easily swayed as a nation by the concept that things might be bad if we had universal coverage. Things are bad, right now, really bad. This is no state for the richest nation in the world. You know, they get universal healthcare in Iraq and Afghanistan off our taxes, but American citizens don't. And there's nothing to say that if you're rich, you can't pay for private healthcare if you want it anyway. A whole niche industry would boom out of rich people not wanting to go to the doctor with everyone else. But I'm not rich. I just got a 20% pay cut at work because of the economy. And I could really use that reduction in my personal financial burdens. Heck, an extra $200 in my pocket every month would really stimulate my local economy. And if my employer didn't have to cover his portion, again, that's jobs he doesn't have to cut. Also, it really shouldn't be my boss' business that I have to have surgery. An unethical employer could just decide to lay me off because I'm too much of a burden. This happens as well, all the time.
So let Mr. Obama toss us this bag of tricks. It's going to keep me in the same situation as before, lower the burden for my boss, and let a lot of poor people get coverage. I'd prefer the government handling it, because the government doesn't have to make a profit by denying me coverage. And I'll still be shouldering the greatest portion of the burden because that's my lot in life. No one's getting out of anything they're responsible for here.
P.S. the lack of universal healthcare makes the philosophical argument that unemployed people don't deserve to go to the doctor when sick. And their sickness and lack of insurance coverage financially burdens us all and puts us all at risk for sickness.
