"Making America less lame, one lame thing at a time."

[ferret_kitty]

I started this post about ten hours ago, and then realized I didn't know enough about the topic of universal health care to discuss it intelligently, so spent the rest of the day reading and researching

Comments

[hugglewolf]

Living in Scotland, all I know is that if the NHS didn't exist my mum and I would be in dire straits. She's in hospital on average 3 to 4 times a year and has several chronic health conditions. As a 60+, she gets free prescriptions which is just as well - here in Scotland they're about £5 or £6 at the minute, and she has to get hers refilled roughly every 2 months, with 8+ items on each script.

Apparently the SNP is pushing to make the scripts completely free this year or next. Although with the current financial state of the country/world, that may not be possible.

Certainly there is no way I could find the money to pay for her hospital and medical bills. I looked into private health insurance for her a few years back, before she was so chronically ill, and even then the price was beyond my means to pay.

Watching American shows like ER was an eye opener for me - but not so much as the movie with Denzel W as a dad whose son needed a heart transplant (he was really young and fell ill suddenly) and after telling him that they went on to say but we can't do it because you have no health insurance (he'd just lost his job which paid for the cover) and they had no money.

It's scary. I think a government's job is to protect and look after their citizens, to make sure they have a stable secure fair country to grow up in, which to my mind includes making sure they have access to health care.

If any government is in doubt, I would suggest they remember that rich people don't have to worry about paying for their healthcare. Poor working class people do, and it's the working classes that support the economy and infrastructure of any country. If they don't have access to medical care for whatever reason, that is a country heading for disaster.

I can't do much from the UK but if you need any petitions signed, etc, let me know. You go, girl.

[ferret_kitty]

Thanks for your support. It's nice to hear first hand experiences with nationalized health care, since everyone on this side of the pond (and this side of the 49th parallel) thinks of nationalized health care as some horrible, evil, socialist thing. Heaven forbid! *rolls eyes*

But yeah, I know my life would be a lot simpler if I didn't have to worry about health insurance or getting sick or injured. And I know a lot of other people like that too.