Health care rant
OK, I don't normally comment on contemporary political stuff but I will now.
You know what drives me crazy in on-line healthcare debates: people, usually college-age (i.e. not paying any taxes) carping on and on about how selfish people are when they are against healthcare reform because it will increase their taxes.
Guess what? Majority of Americans have healthcare insurance already. The majority of them are satisfied enough with it. OK, let me make it more personal - my family has health insurance I am happy with. If the health care reform is passed, I will be indubitably worse off - I will have to pay more taxes (because there is no doubt there will be some sort of tax increase to cover it, whatever the politicians say - income tax, vat-type tax, sales tax whatever). I will have to pay more taxes for something that is of no benefit to me whatsoever. That is the best-case scenario. Worst case scenario is my insurer, who I am very pleased with, will be driven out of business because of its inability to compete with the government-run option - I will end up poorer and with worse insurance. Hooray? I do not think so.
So basically, what health insurance reform means for the majority of people who already have health care is that they have to give up money for other people's benefit - I will have to make my family poorer so a stranger I do not know has better health care. I will have less money to spend on Baby Mousie so some random other family I have never met can take their family members to the dentist for yearly check-ups.
Now, before everyone jumps down my throat - I do support some form of universal health care. I don't mind somewhat higher taxes so my fellow citizens could have access to medicine. But that is the thing - since it's MY money, I am pretty entitled to be picky about where the money comes from (nitty-gritty realistic details) and also want that coverage to be very structured and, frankly, limited. And guess what? I do not hold it against people who do NOT agree with me - who do not want to spend their money on others. Humans are wired this way - we like to take care of our family groups first, strangers later. We prefer the well-being of those near to us to well-being of those we don't know.
After all, a lot of people who are in favor of health-care reform are also doing so on selfish grounds - they have no insurance or insurance they can barely afford and if national health care becomes reality, they will be better off - they are (rightfully) not concerned that it will be at the cost of strangers having to subsidize them. That is how people operate - on selfishness.
I think there would be more of an OK with health care reform if people were told 'because you want to be able to eat out twice a week instead of once, someone else's little Jimmy would die of a heart attack as he would not be admitted into the emergency room' - but because ER is not allowed to discriminate based on your inability to pay, a lot of people believe that worst case scenarios are already covered and anything more is a luxury, not a right.
So yes. I do believe my fellow human beings deserve access to medicine and am OK with paying for it but you can't expect me to blindly agree with whatever the government proposes and also blindly jump for joy I will be losing money for well-being of strangers.
Don't even get me started on rationing - of course it will occur. Whenever there is a scarcity of resources and demand that outweighs them, there will be rationing. Now, national health care is still a good idea despite that, IMO, especially if better private plans are allowed for all those who are willing and able to afford one, but to pretend it won't exist is absurd!
You know what drives me crazy in on-line healthcare debates: people, usually college-age (i.e. not paying any taxes) carping on and on about how selfish people are when they are against healthcare reform because it will increase their taxes.
Guess what? Majority of Americans have healthcare insurance already. The majority of them are satisfied enough with it. OK, let me make it more personal - my family has health insurance I am happy with. If the health care reform is passed, I will be indubitably worse off - I will have to pay more taxes (because there is no doubt there will be some sort of tax increase to cover it, whatever the politicians say - income tax, vat-type tax, sales tax whatever). I will have to pay more taxes for something that is of no benefit to me whatsoever. That is the best-case scenario. Worst case scenario is my insurer, who I am very pleased with, will be driven out of business because of its inability to compete with the government-run option - I will end up poorer and with worse insurance. Hooray? I do not think so.
So basically, what health insurance reform means for the majority of people who already have health care is that they have to give up money for other people's benefit - I will have to make my family poorer so a stranger I do not know has better health care. I will have less money to spend on Baby Mousie so some random other family I have never met can take their family members to the dentist for yearly check-ups.
Now, before everyone jumps down my throat - I do support some form of universal health care. I don't mind somewhat higher taxes so my fellow citizens could have access to medicine. But that is the thing - since it's MY money, I am pretty entitled to be picky about where the money comes from (nitty-gritty realistic details) and also want that coverage to be very structured and, frankly, limited. And guess what? I do not hold it against people who do NOT agree with me - who do not want to spend their money on others. Humans are wired this way - we like to take care of our family groups first, strangers later. We prefer the well-being of those near to us to well-being of those we don't know.
After all, a lot of people who are in favor of health-care reform are also doing so on selfish grounds - they have no insurance or insurance they can barely afford and if national health care becomes reality, they will be better off - they are (rightfully) not concerned that it will be at the cost of strangers having to subsidize them. That is how people operate - on selfishness.
I think there would be more of an OK with health care reform if people were told 'because you want to be able to eat out twice a week instead of once, someone else's little Jimmy would die of a heart attack as he would not be admitted into the emergency room' - but because ER is not allowed to discriminate based on your inability to pay, a lot of people believe that worst case scenarios are already covered and anything more is a luxury, not a right.
So yes. I do believe my fellow human beings deserve access to medicine and am OK with paying for it but you can't expect me to blindly agree with whatever the government proposes and also blindly jump for joy I will be losing money for well-being of strangers.
Don't even get me started on rationing - of course it will occur. Whenever there is a scarcity of resources and demand that outweighs them, there will be rationing. Now, national health care is still a good idea despite that, IMO, especially if better private plans are allowed for all those who are willing and able to afford one, but to pretend it won't exist is absurd!