Health care costs are too much
One of the biggest problems in the U.S. today is inconsistency. We claim a desire to aid those in need, our politicians–e.g., President Bush–say they want to fight for peace, justice, and the American way, but when it comes to the people who most need our aid and support, they say: no, it costs too much.
What am I talking about? I’m talking about the latest major controversy in our U.S. Congress today. No, it’s not immigration, it’s universal health care for children.
As a now adult, I have become more sensitive to the hardships of those around me, especially children whose parents are unable to adequately care for them through employment, and etc. I would think that it would be our greatest and most sacred duty to do everything that we can to make sure that the children in our society have access to health care, so that situations like the one that took Deamonte Driver’s life at 12 (he died because he was denied an $80 dental treatment by the government) would never happen again.
Unfortunately, it appears our government does not care about saving the lives of our youth.
Yesterday, the Senate rejected a Republican plan to cut federal payments for middle-income children and childless adults under the State Children’s Health Insurance Program
To summarize the 2 plans, the majority (with partisan support) wants to have $60 billion — which will pass – for the program, and Bush and his supporters (the minority) wants half.
According to Bush, $60 billion is too much to spend. This makes complete sense of course, you know coming from someone who has forced from Congress $610 billion for the Iraq war from 2001 through May 25, 2007. Moreover, the U.S. spends more money on the military and military operations that then next 4 highest countries combined.
But, the military is not the only reason why the Republicans who are opposed to Universal Health Care for children are hypocrites, it’s also the way they feel that health care, and health insurance should be doled out.
I’ve traditionally been a Rudy Giuliani supporter, even if I am a Democrat. If I was ever to support a Republican for President — and I’m not — then he would probably be the person.
However, he has proven to be completely out of touch when it comes to the needs of poor and middle class people in this country, and now, I no longer like him all that much.
What am I talking about? I’m talking about his new plan for health insurance to counter Democratic calls for free Universal Health Care in the U.S., like they have in countries in Europe.
According to Giuliani, it is a socialist plan, and too much like Europe.
“[French President Nicolas] Sarkozy is on an airplane headed to the United States, and Hillary and Barack and John Edwards are on an airplane headed to France,” Giuliani said. “They are looking for the socialist solution they have in Europe, and Sarkozy is looking for the free-market private solutions that work so well in the United States.”
- CNN.com
That’s it. We can’t have Universal Health Care because it is a European phenomenon, and we want to do things the American way…. Does that make any sense what so ever? What about all of the various things that come from Europe that we American’s have adopted into our way of life? What about the Little Italy’s and the French restaurants throughout every major city in our Country? Forget about that, what about the scientists and inventors that we bring from countries in Europe (Africa, China, Japan, etc.) to use and make money? What kind of argument is that? If we were to drop all of the things that we have learned and adapted from other countries, what would we do?
There are approximately 44.8 million Americans currently without health care coverage, which equals 15.3% of the population.
- CNN.com
And his plan to combat this is to offer a “$15,000 tax deduction for each family to buy private health insurance”. And yet, he ignores the fact the people who have no insurance cannot afford to buy it in the first place, they probably don’t make enough to even pay taxes, they are currently suffering, and a tax deduction wouldn’t do them anything if they don’t pay much of anything at all.
To top it off, he wants to keep President Bush’s tax cuts for the rich in tact, and of course, his real plan is revealed. Keep the rich happy, and the middle class and poor broke as hell.
Why not fight the insurance companies that dictate the care that we get? Why not promise people who need care and work harder than most people on Wall Street for 1/5th of the benefit? Why not get some balls and stand up to your party for a change?
Because everyone knows the one thing we need in this country is a change.
5 Comments
I more than agree that something needs to be done for the health care system. It’s not fair to say it would be a socialist plan like Europe seeing that Canada has something very very similar going on.
The problem with getting a change in this country is that the government hesitates with “average changes.” They don’t hesitate making changes when it comes to more international matters like… say waging war on others. I think matters that are closer to home are probably just less important to the government. Maybe they figure that if they can deal with the rest of the world figure, people here will be perfectly content with their government. Who knows. It seems to be working seeing how more people seem to care about the war in Iraq than they do about health insurance.
Well, they do hesitate now, it’s just the moron Bush basically uses his presidential powers to get what he wants done, without Congressional support.
Maybe 4 years ago, but this isn’t really true now. Put simply, if Bush wanted to wage war with another country, he would not have much of any support in either party.
For things like with Darfur, they are actually taking the effort to get UN support, and taking action is necessary, people are being killed, it’s worse than with Hussein, well, at the time of the Iraq War at least.
People are angry, very angry and scared. They want their sons and daughters to stop dying and come home.
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Look at the immigration bill, for instance. Bush supported it, but very few Americans did, and so it was shot down after an intense grassroots movement. I don’t know a whole lot about this particular bill, but I know that a lot of people are opposed to government health insurance in general, for several reasons, such as the tax hike such a program would require and the fact that other government-run programs such as the public schools and social security are in such bad shape.
Now, believe me, I’m not particularly fond of Bush. In fact, I’m pretty ticked at him for telling the people who campaigned for him that they don’t want what’s best for America. But I think the Bush conspiracy theories are a little silly. The President has quite a bit of influence, but so do the people. The politicians are primarily concerned about getting re-elected. If they’re wise, they won’t ignore those who elected them in the first place.
As for spending on Iraq vs spending on healthcare, I don’t believe that’s a just comparison. Whether we like it or not, the government’s main jobs are providing for the common defense and administering justice in order to protect law-abiding citizens. Now, we may believe that invading Iraq was not necessary to protect our country. We may argue that the government should also provide for the common welfare (which is leaning towards socialism). But that doesn’t change the government’s role as it’s currently defined, or change the fact that our leaders apparently decided invading Iraq was necessary. So until the primary purpose of our government is modified, I think it’s unfair to compare the cost of military operations to the projected cost of government healthcare of any kind.
That’s my two cents, anyway.
Maybe I didn’t read your comment correctly, but the primary purpose of the government is to serve it’s people. Congress has power over the war, and the President has his own power. They are 2 separate things, and the priorities of the government get called into question because of their actions towards those.
It is not unfair to compare the two because their actions are a statement of fact. The President is willing to spend a–seemingly–unlimited amount on a war that is unjust, unqualified, and un-ending, and yet, he objects to spending more money on keeping children in our country safe and healthy. I’m not going to get into the specific reasons why because that’s a whole other post, but I think you can imagine.
Do you have a month? I could let you in on a few of the secrets about interest groups, propaganda, and splitting of votes in elections.
I work in a pharmcy so I definitely see a ton of people without insurance. However, in TN we have the Tenncare, Medicaid; and there are a lot of people on that. Basically the government pays, because the people can’t afford insurance. I think every state just needs their own form of this. What really bugs me, just as much as children is elderly not being able to afford their maintenance drugs, that they need to be taking to monitor blood pressure, cholestoral, stuff to keep them alive. Now that I’m 18 I need to start looking at all the parties running for presidency and figure out where everyone stands on the issues so I know who to vote for.