Here are some basics every human being needs in order to survive: Air, water, food, shelter, medical care, emotional care, knowledge. Some can be gotten for free; some need to be paid for or provided. Apparently the people to whom we hand over our taxes just don't get that. Instead, we get to pay for parks, bridges (to nowhere, sometimes), street lights, museums, etc. These same funds should pay for OUR BASIC NEEDS before they pay for ANYTHING ELSE. PERIOD.
Hasn't it occurred to the noodniks in Washington that one big reason doctors have a malpractice insurance crisis -- and we have lawsuit abuse in this country because we don't have basic healthcare paid for out of our taxes? What a change we'd see -- what a reduction in frivolous lawsuits with awards in the millions of dollars, if our medical care was initially paid for? Why are we being taxed to hell and back if it isn't benefitting us where we need it most?
We've been brainwashed into believing that our taxes would all go up to 50% if we funded healthcare nationally, but it isn't so. It wouldn't have to be if our tax dollars went for our care first, before all the pork. We've also been told our employers would take away our healthcare benefits if it became nationalized. So what? They could afford to pay more workers if that happened. Why should one's medical care be tied to their job, anyway? Are employed people more entitled to life and health than those who have a bad run of luck or lose their jobs? Yeah, yeah, this may sound like commie talk to some, but so many of our programs are already nationalized (schools, parks, libraries, etc.) that it's ridiculous that a PRINCIPAL NEED IN LIFE is completely ignored this way. Is the U.S. just too pea-brained to realize we can DEMAND this of our legislators or vote them the hell out?
We've already started a movement to provide healthcare to children. Tell me, who takes care of healthy children when their parents are disabled in an accident or get cancer and can't pay for treatment? WE do, as taxpayers, somehow. Why not just provide healthcare to everyone OUT OF OUR TAXES and cut out unnecessary programs that only a select few of us use? I don't know about you, but I'd gladly do without a space program or a funded study of bears in the wild if we had a healthcare system that worked.
I'm not saying a plan like NHS in Britian is a perfect model for us -- I know many Brits who rely on it for the basics but go to a private doctor for 'extras' because they can afford it. I have to wait in line for non-emergency care in the U.S. too, unless I go to a doc-in-the-box. In this country, even a poor illegal alien can walk into a hospital and get her baby delivered, courtesy of us middle-class 'worker bee' citizens who pay taxes -- yet we can't get the same free treatment, even if we're citizens. A prison inmate could get in line before me for a heart transplant -- and I'd have to help pay for it. Meanwhile our 'servants' -- our elected Representatives and Senators, get the best of care (on our dime, too) but we don't.
We have too many lawyers filing too many lawsuits that take too long to settle because we have not demanded a working healthcare system. People are often forced to file bankruptcy because they can't pay for their treatment (or their kids'), then the hospitals write it off -- and we who contribute to the tax rolls end up paying for it. Our healthcare should be paid for before any Bank bailout, before any Wall Street bailout, before any Auto Company bailout. Why is that so hard to understand?
Doctors, who naturally want a financial return on their hard-won education, and pharma companies are paying lobbyists to keep the status quo. I know several foreign doctors who would be glad to work at a lower rate in Podunk, Iowa to help pay off their medical school debt, and that would cost us less. I also know several docs who wouldn't have gone into the profession if not for the outstanding financial rewards. We won't necessarily lose the best and brightest doctors if we 'go national'. A certain amount of pro bono work is required of lawyers -- why not doctors? Pharmceuticals are kept at a high price -- yes, to fund the development -- but countries with nationalized healthcare seem to do pretty well preventing diseases with the drugs they have. Has it also occurred to our genius statesmen that they'd be able to outlaw dangerous substances such as cigarettes if disease prevention was a central part of our healthcare plan?
British doctors can actually get bonuses for getting folks off cigarettes. Imagine that -- being rewarded for helping a smoker break his addiction, so he'll end up costing the system less.
Mr. Obama, I'm glad healthcare is at the top of your list... and I'm glad you're demanding more transparency with our legislators when it comes to lobbyists. Their own re-election should depend on it.
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