If you care about your fellow countrymen
If you care about health care, people, human suffering, and especially if you don't care about health care, watch this hour-long Special Comment on the health care debate by Keith Olbermann.
Yes, it's an hour, but seriously, watch it. And then contact your congresscritters and demand a robust, trigger-free public option. They *must* hear from us, ( Read more... )
Yes, it's an hour, but seriously, watch it. And then contact your congresscritters and demand a robust, trigger-free public option. They *must* hear from us, ( Read more... )
I do not want to end up in a situation where a bureaucrat makes the decision that there just isn't the budget to take care of her.
You are likely one of the lucky ones, but that's what happening anyway. It's just that it's a private bureaucracy and not a public one, and one that has a vested interest in reducing her care in order to maximize profit.
I say you're one of the lucky ones because you are a valuable employee at a large corporation, and that company will take care of you by providing the best health care it can purchase. And, by virtue of its size, your company can negotiate for better rates from the insurance companies. But if, for some reason, you were to be laid off, or something else happened to you, Lori would no longer have that protection.
I think we're talking about two different things here - health care vs. health insurance. Lori's medical care is unlikely change. What we're fighting for is to get the profit motive OUT of health care, since the insurance companies would love to get people like Lori off of their books. I don't see the care from doctors decreasing just because someone else is paying the bills (and paying more than the insurance companies at that).
I would also be offended by tax dollars going to pay for liver transplants for drunks, diabetes treatment for the obese (yes, I am obese, I am aware of that), cancer treatment for smokers, etc.
We already do this by paying to support hospitals for ER care. Are you suggesting that anyone who makes poor choices - be it long-term or short-term - should be penalized by being denied a social contract designed to help the betterment of all of citizenry?
And I resent my tax dollars being used to support the number of folks being sent to prison. I don't like it when my tax dollars are spent on baseball teams. And I really don't appreciate my tax dollars being used for two useless wars. There's a lot of stuff that my tax dollars pay for that I would rather not be used, but that's part of living in a society with a government. I far more support everyday people being cared for than many of the other things we pay for.
And as for the drunks, the smokers, and the obese? If 95% of my tax dollars used for health care can help those who live "perfect" lives, I don't have a problem also supporting the minuscule percentage of those people who make poor choices. I simply cannot be audacious enough to be judge, jury, and executioner to decide who "deserves" the right to live and be healthy and who does not.
Right now, if I didn't have insurance through my work, I could not get insurance. I tried once when I was unemployed and I was denied strictly on weight alone. I have perfect blood pressure, perfect cholesterol, have never smoked, no STDs, good genetic stock, etc. My "preexisting conditions" consist of poor eyesight and being overweight (and I had to go to the ER once for cellulitus), and my weight hasn't caused me to be ill or a burden on society.
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