A brief foray into politics
Largely through the use of a few visual aids videos I've found.
While I don't disagree that the health care system in the US is messed up, I do think that the current bill that's trying to be pushed through is a disaster. There are a number of reasons for this, including the fact that most of the people voting on it haven't read the darn thing. But the really big one is cost. The plan is way more expensive than we can afford.
Here're the vidoes that help demonstrate that. Go ahead and watch, I'll wait and catch up with you below. There are three of them, but they're short. (And as an aside, I've gone to the guy's blog, and he shows where he's getting his numbers from. These numbers aren't made up, nor are they coming from a skewed site. They're official numbers from the CBO, president's projections, and officially released numbers on hospitals (for the wait time video). He also tends to go with the least extreme value if there's a margin of error in the numbers.
I've mentioned before, although not, I think, on LJ, that I feel a lot of the problem is due to the way the insurance industry is regulated. Unlike car insurance (which is usually quite cheap), you can't have national health insurance companies. Companies are required to operate only within a single state. Also the system of catering to big employers for health insurance plans is a problem. If they changed it so that anyone could get insurance from any company, change at any time, and have the insurance companies not be allowed to deny coverage or drop coverage, I think that would go a long way to fixing the problem, and be a lot cheaper.
We'd be seeing Geico-style health insurance commericals: "I just saved 20% by switching to Geico Healthcare!"
And it'd be a much smaller bill than the 1000 page monster currently in Congress. But the big point is that it's something we can afford. I learned a long time ago that no matter how cool something may be that I want-- like a Tesla Roadster, for instance-- if I can't afford it, I shouldn't buy it. I wish the government would learn the same lesson. If you can't afford it, stop spending the money.
Speaking of, here's one last visual about government spending to conclude this brief foray:
While I don't disagree that the health care system in the US is messed up, I do think that the current bill that's trying to be pushed through is a disaster. There are a number of reasons for this, including the fact that most of the people voting on it haven't read the darn thing. But the really big one is cost. The plan is way more expensive than we can afford.
Here're the vidoes that help demonstrate that. Go ahead and watch, I'll wait and catch up with you below. There are three of them, but they're short. (And as an aside, I've gone to the guy's blog, and he shows where he's getting his numbers from. These numbers aren't made up, nor are they coming from a skewed site. They're official numbers from the CBO, president's projections, and officially released numbers on hospitals (for the wait time video). He also tends to go with the least extreme value if there's a margin of error in the numbers.
Click to viewI've mentioned before, although not, I think, on LJ, that I feel a lot of the problem is due to the way the insurance industry is regulated. Unlike car insurance (which is usually quite cheap), you can't have national health insurance companies. Companies are required to operate only within a single state. Also the system of catering to big employers for health insurance plans is a problem. If they changed it so that anyone could get insurance from any company, change at any time, and have the insurance companies not be allowed to deny coverage or drop coverage, I think that would go a long way to fixing the problem, and be a lot cheaper.
We'd be seeing Geico-style health insurance commericals: "I just saved 20% by switching to Geico Healthcare!"
And it'd be a much smaller bill than the 1000 page monster currently in Congress. But the big point is that it's something we can afford. I learned a long time ago that no matter how cool something may be that I want-- like a Tesla Roadster, for instance-- if I can't afford it, I shouldn't buy it. I wish the government would learn the same lesson. If you can't afford it, stop spending the money.
Speaking of, here's one last visual about government spending to conclude this brief foray: