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Thursday, November 12, 2009

Health Care

It's been dead silent for several days on a certain Yahoo group since my last few remarks. In my typical passive-aggressive way I replied to a message, one of the increasingly irritating partisan posts, one marked "I don't usually foward to my entire mailbox but this is to [sic] important". I knew the original comment was off-topic and out-dated, being a link to a YouTube video that has made the rounds for some time already, but I channeled a little Howard Beale, stuck my neck out, and let them know, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

In a nice way, of course.

Mr. Rogers's remarks are full of exaggeration, and rather than pick apart his every fabrication, acknowledging the original bill has undergone revision, I tried to make a few simple points:

The 15% of uninsured Rogers refers to includes the hardworking self-employed, not only the welfare "weak" (who, incidentally, already receive health care through Medicare and Medicaid.)

Against the idea of government subsidized health care? What about veterans, civil service employees, and anyone receiving Social Security disability payments who already benefit from various plans?

The insurance companies obviously don't want to forfeit any profits and are lobbying hard to kill any public program. Why support their greed?

Got yourself a nice 9-5 with adequate health insurance? Good for you. Why not make an affordable government public OPTION available to the remaining uninsured? Why punish the rest of us?

Maybe they're thinking about it...

3 comments:

la Maitresse said...

Yes!

And I have a little story for you. My mother fell ill in France in August. A was with her, and they had just flown to Paris from Addis Ababa (Ethiopia). As soon as A could, he summoned SOS Médecins (a private company) in French to the hotel room. Since my mother is not a French national, she was charged $50 (!) for the emergency call to her room. She was also given tests and prescription medications (Alex picked them up, paid for them separately). The SOS physician who attend my mother told her to go to the nearest French hospital for further testing...which, had she decided to actually go, would have been free of charge.

My mother can't stop raving about the French medical episode (as well as French food, entertainment, quality of life, and, and...).

The point is, government-subsidized health insurance *can* create competition, and private industries, such as SOS Médecins , can co-exist with government healthcare...just like those wheelie chairs that we see on T.V. commercials in the States are subsidized by Medicare.

Meg_L said...

Good work speaking up. They may not listen, but then again you might put some doubts into their heads.

Becky said...

I can't remember who I was listening to on CBC radio this past week on the subject of health care in the US, but he was saying that Obama had made a strategic mistake pitching health care reform by reassuring those who already HAVE health care that they don't have to worry. What he should be doing is hammering home the idea that those who don't ALREADY have health care, and worry about it constantly, wouldn't have to worry any more.

Another benefit to our Canadian system -- almost no paperwork. My parents are fortunate enough to have a good insurance program, but at every turn they have to offer ID and fill out forms. I had three babies and never once signed a piece of paper, other than to fill out a birth certificate. And when there's an emergency and you're in the emergency, you go right in -- no filling out forms or offering credit card numbers to promise that you can pay while your child sits there bleeding or in pain...

I had dandy health insurance in the US, and live in a rural area in Canada where we often don't have as many doctors as we'd like, but I'm a happy convert to this system.