So why do I support universal healthcare?
Let's start with another question. Why do I have health insurance?
- By chance, I was born into a family that could afford to send me to college. Therefore I was able to obtain an education that enabled me to get a good job - the type of job that typically includes subsidized health insurance.
- My employer offers it. This is in part my choice: I might not choose to accept employment with a company that doesn't offer health coverage. But in a pinch, I imagine I'd accept a job just about anywhere if it meant the difference between home-ownership and foreclosure.
- By chance or luck, I'm relatively healthy. This means no expensive treatments or pre-existing conditions for which an insurance company could decide to cancel my coverage.
- Because my parents had health insurance. That's one reason that I'm alive today. After delivery by emergency c-section, I was transfused with blood to replace what had been lost. And one week later, I had surgery to repair an intestinal blockage that prevented me from digesting anything. Without those interventions, I wouldn't have survived my first month. If I had died, I probably wouldn't have health insurance today. My parents' health coverage was, again, not something within my control.
So why do I support universal health insurance?
Because I suspect that the fate of the uninsured is no more within their control than my own.
4 comments:
Thank you. I really enjoyed reading that. So often you hear people railing on about the "evils of socialism" and how they shouldn't have to pay for other people's health care, but it really isn't their fault and part of america is about helping out everyone else.
A,mais pura verdade!
The sad reality is that the bigger the government gets, the more the quality of life diminishes. We can't look to government to solve healthcare problems, it isn't what they are there for, and our gov't has not demonstrated doing well with great responsibility fiscally. When nations have universal healthcare, the quality goes down, and everyone loses. Countries don't advance with medicine unless there is serious motivation, it is just the way we are wired, and low salaries and feeling your hands are tied as a physician does not bring the 'best' into the field nor does it keep them.
The comment above is patently, verifiably ill-informed.
Among the list of countries with the greatest life expectancy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy), virtually all of the top fifteen have some form of universal health care. Government, believe it or not, is capable of doing some things quite efficiently, except when congress makes huge, expensive concessions to special interest lobbies (such as pharmaceutical companies).
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