Healthcare: Posted on My Blog at BarackObama.com
I don't know if Barack Obama reads any of these blogs or if any of their content gets to him, but I did want to write a bit about healthcare and insurance.
I'm thirty-five years old and terribly obese (I weigh over twice what I should). We have a pretty good insurance plan through my wife's place of employment (I'm self-employed). However, there are issues. First, the insurance, actually pretty much ALL insurance companies fall into this category, refuses to cover medically supervised weight loss. It would have to come from out of my own pocket, and I just CAN'T afford it. At all. Next, the insurance only partially covers bariatric gastric bypass surgery, and as it's considered "elective," the rest of the cost ($20,000 - $30,000) would have to come from out of pocket. Can't afford that either, so the insurance company's "coverage" is really no coverage at all.
I have tried many diets, some doctor supervised (when the doctor was kind enough to give me a break and when I could afford at least something) and on my own. I have lost weight in the past, a significant amount, but it has always come back.
I am VERY frustrated at this point. I don't WANT to go through the surgery, which I MAY be able to do IF the doctor convinces the insurance company it is medically NECESSARY, not just elective or cosmetic, based on family history.
I think there's a distinction the candidates are all missing. There is a difference between Universal Healthcare and affordable insurance. We are the ONLY First World country that has no Universal Healthcare program for ALL its citizens, and frankly, that's an embarrassment and a terrible thing for American citizens, especially those of us who can't really afford GREAT health insurance. And I don't find the candidates talking about Universal Healthcare. They all talk about "Affordable Insurance," which basically means forcing everyone to pay for it as they do auto, life, or property insurance. It might force insurance companies to cover EVERYONE, regardless of health or "pre-existing" conditions, but it's NOT Universal Healthcare, and that's just wrong.
I would LOVE to see Barack Obama standing up and making that distinction and working to get every citizen of this country the Healthcare they deserve, which would lower the cost of extra insurance on TOP of the Universal Healthcare. They have a system like this in Australia - a two-tiered system - and it seems to work great.
Why DON'T ANY of the candidates propose this?
9 comments:
Don't expect anything good from Obama. He was one of the sponsors of the healthcare justice act in Illinois, but allowed it to get watered down buy Emil Jones, president of the senate who basically was Obama's puppet master.
why do we all deserve Universal Healthcare? Just because other countries have it? We certainly can't afford it.
If other countries just handed out gold nuggets to their citizens, would we deserve that too?
We pay out of pocket, like you said, for auto, life, and property insurance. Why not health insurance too? Sure, it's expensive. Rent is expensive too--- do you want the government to go ahead and pay your rent too, because in other countries there are some citizens not paying rent?
Jewish day school is expensive too--- but you and many others make a choice to send your kids there instead of FREE public school. So why does the government need to pay for your health insurance?
We COULD afford if the government stopped wasting on idiocies like useless wars.
Your gold nuggets comment is just dumb.
And there are government funded places where people ARE able to live rent free. And rent isn't expensive in MANY places. And to be honest, I also feel Jewish day school should be at least subsidized, if not paid for completely, by vouchers. We pay taxes for which we receive NO services.
Next.
ok, so your stand is that the government should give us free healthcare, free housing, free schooling.
And you believe that taxes don't provide ANYTHING except free schooling and if you don't take advantage of public school you're not getting anything for your tax dollars. Police? Fire? Library?
You're a TRUE Republican. You've completely twisted what I've said.
I NEVER said the government should provide free housing or schooling. However, the taxes I pay that are ALLOCATED TOWARD public school should be given back to me in the form of vouchers I can use to give my child a Jewish education. That's what a large portion of property and city taxes goes to, and I, along with MANY people who send their children to private school, especially when it's for religious reasons, feel.
Further, there are OTHER tax dollars we ALL pay that are allocated to police, fire, library, and other city services.
Further, there's an awful lot of money mismanagement in government, local, state, and federal (like, for instance, illegal wars and special interests) that could and should have been allocated toward national universal healthcare.
There's also the possibility of making it a joint venture between state and federal. There're lots of possibilities.
But don't twist around what I say. You make yourself look like an idiot.
Vouchers aside, please allow me to address the universal healthcare aspect of this post and the other anonymous poster's comments.
This is not a question of whether we should provide some governmental service simply because other countries do. The purpose in referencing other countries is not, as of course you know, to say that they do hence we should (as if others' behavior were a reason in and of itself for adopting a policy), but to underscore the point that all these other countries have realized certain truths that, for whatever reason, still seem to elude us.
All these other countries have recognized that the ability to take care of your basic health and the health of your children is of fundamental importance. There are very few things that are so centrally at the core of what it means to be able to take responsibility for yourself, but some examples come to mind, such as policing, firefighting and educating. There's no reason why, necessarily, the government should have to provide any of THESE things either. We could have private security, private fire fighters and private school for those who can afford it, and if you can't, then gee that's too bad, there won't be anyone to put out the fire that destroys your neighborhood or to arrest the guy who robbed you. Better luck next time. We as a nation have to decide whether basic health care is one of those things that a people rightly should demand. Because lacking healthcare doesn't just mean that you have to pay for it yourself, often it means that you can't get the care you need in the first place.
How very true. Unfortunately, so far, in this country, the Almight Dollar is far more important than the citizens, and with the Almight Dollar, the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies have managed to effectively and successfully block any attempts at socializing medicine.
Speaking of which, do you know WHY we don't have Universal Healthcare in this country? It was proposed in the 1950s, but because the word "socialized" medicine was used, it was turned down as sounding too "Commie." Since then, NO attempt has ever been successful.
Thanks for posting your comment. It was to the point.
I agree with you. Proposals for universal healthcare have resurfaced over the decades, and are always defeated on these grounds: those with the power/money (and thus the most to lose from successful reform) remind us of how afraid we are of socialism and explain that universal healthcare is a hop skip 'n a jump (as my mom used to say) from the kremlin. It happened in the 70s, 80s and 90s as well.
And if you listen to present-day opposition to modern universal healthcare proposals, they use much the same language as in the old days. It's "socialism." I just wish that people would put some thought into it and understand that having one kind of socialized service (such as, again, "socialized" police forces or "socialized" educational services) does not mean that your entire country becomes socialist, nor that taking away these services would make us more democratic.
The problem is people don't realize this is a conflict of Capitalism, not Democracy. Socializing ANY service doesn't make or break democracy. And that's what so many people miss.
I'm not sure. Can you have democratic socialism? It doesn't seem like they're mutually exclusive.
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