1. Half of the bankruptcies filed in America are due to health care costs. Are you freaking kidding me? You have cancer and are dying and now you are bankrupt. Insult to injury, literally.
2. Our emergency rooms are stretched beyond capacity because people without health care have only one option when they are sick....ER's CANNOT turn you away.
3. The federal government, by 2015 will be spending 20% of its budget financing health care and there are still millions of people uninsured. The money the gov. spends on health care goes to Medicare, Medicaid, and subsidizing employer-sponsored health care. We, in fact, spend a larger percentage of our GDP on health care than any other industrialized country! Yet, somehow, one-sixth of Americans are uninsured.
4. The lack of preventative medicine, physicals, annual exams, checkups when problems BEGIN to arise, etc, cause people who are uninsured to only seek medical care when their conditions become full blown = $ The percentage of adults who receive recommended preventative care and screening tests according to guidelines for their age and sex is only 49%.
5. Rising cost of premiums due to administrative costs caused by our multi-payer system (31% of all costs), costly "defensive medicine"(expensive tests doctors run just to be sure they don't miss anything because they are scared of malpractice suits= 10% of health care costs), and a shift from non-profit to for-profit hosptials.
ugly ugly ugly. (I'm pretty sure most of this stuff is correct, but because the internet is a vast web of lies, do correct me if something is amiss.)
There is no question health care needs reform. None.
HOWEVER, i pretty much HATE Obama's idea. ya hate. it's a strong word, but i hate it. I saw Sicko, i was convinced for like 12 seconds...then i did some thinking, some research, and some listening. Here it is:
TIFFANY'S PLAN FOR WORLD DOMINATION, er strike that, HEALTH CARE REFORM AND ALONGSIDE THAT, WHY OBAMA'S PLAN SUCKS
ok actually i don't have a plan. i'm too lazy to come up with an actual plan. Oh, the things i could accomplish for world peace and prosperity if i'd only apply myself. I do have some ideas though, and maybe someone reading this will go ahead and get off their butt and make a plan. I, on the other hand, can only muster enough energy to rant and rave without even paying regard to proper punctuation.
The problem with health care is we have no freaking clue how much a heart transplant costs, how much a liver biopsy is, or the cost of an x-ray. Oh I comparison shop the hell outta soda, I can't tell you how many times i've looked at Ralphs' for coke and said "5.99 for a 12-pack?!?!?!? I can get that for 3 at Albertsons." When was the last time any of us shopped around for doctors? We don't even ASK how much a service will cost most of the time. It reminds me of little kids playing pretend bakery: Q: "How much for a loaf of bread mister baker" A: "1000 dollars please" ;;child hands over a wad of imaginary money;;
Let's let some good ol' free market capitalism run rampant for once! OOO no not in health care, that'd be evil! Wrong, case in point....Lasik. Lasik used to cost an arm and a leg and it was "scary" cause lasers in your eye in 1995 were less than credible. Now look! Lasik is cheap, quick, and virtually risk free. Why? cause your insurance doesn't cover it and free market ruled. Companies found ways to do it cheaper and faster to turn a buck...and it worked, again, like it always does.
Next problem, insurance covers everything. How stupid is that???? I believe it was good ol' John Stosel that pointed this problem out. What if we gave everybody grocery insurance. Oh it sure would be lovely beacuse then everyone could have food....but the vast majority of americans would just get straight crap. We'd buy food we didn't need, let food rot in our fridge, and once again, stop checking prices...which, in turn would raise the cost of groceries. It's bad economics, and i didn't even take that class.
On top of that, Obama's plan wants all the rich people to pay for my health care. This entitlement garbage makes me sick. If you want to raise taxes for your crappy socialized medicine make everyone pay. Flat tax the bitch. No matter what you make, everyone pays 4% surtax or whatever. At least make it LOOK like you aren't a jealous rapacious parasite. Now we can go to the doctor and let rich people pay the bill...now I REALLY don't need to do a price check.
Don't get me wrong no one....NO ONE...should go bankrupt because of chemo, transplants, or ongoing prescriptions for chronic health conditions. That's just mean. I'm all for covering the "big stuff" (for the love of all that is holy don't make me defend that statement. I don't know how to define big stuff, like i said toooooo lazy to make a plan.) But little Suzy and hypochondriac Phil need to stop going to the doctor everytime their snot looks a little yellow. It's a flippin cold, have some soup and quit whining for antibiotics, you just raised my premium 10 bucks jack ass.
I think Stosel got in right in his health care special...health savings accounts. Look them up here. I think the benefit is fairly obvious. It addresses all the above problems. It lowers premiums because you have high deductible plans, it makes doctors and hospitals accountable to prices, and, GOD FORBID, allows free market to inch it's way into the health care business, asking docs and hospitals to do it better for cheaper. Sounds like the ticket to me.
Ya ya ya, i didn't cover everything, buy i'm tired of talking about this. Maybe i'm tired because of thyroid problem. I'll call my doctor, it only costs me 40 bucks for him to run a whole battery of tests....i'm covered.
