Friday, August 28, 2009

Health Care (yes, again)

Tomorrow I'm marching for health care. I don't remember ever attending a rally before but this is definitely a cause worth showing up for. Being a dual citizen I have had a taste of what government health care can be in my other country. I liked that taste. I had the flu and was able to see a doctor, be prescribed medicine and pick that medicine up all totally for free.

I love America, without reserve. But you don't get that here. Even if you have private health care there's always a co-pay and who wants to pay $40 for a visit and some medicine for just the flu? So we (well I, but I bet I'm not the only one) struggle on, sick longer than we have to be, costing our workplaces money by not being able to work. It makes no sense to me. If we have public libraries, public schools, public roads, etc. why is public health care so different? Because it's more expensive? If people could afford better early care less people would get sick enough to need the really expensive stuff.

And if it's too expensive for the government, for a community as a whole, to be able to cover it, imagine what a drain on an individual household it is. Especially if you can't work due to your illness. Private insurance is so so so expensive. Too expensive unless you work for a business big enough to pay for it for you - which by the way, does cost you, because if your boss wasn't paying hundreds of dollars a month for your health care maybe they could give you that raise you want so bad. And talk about death panels, they turn people down all the time. Have you ever heard of a compassionate caring insurance company? Please.

I did some research. I'm young and healthy and it would cost almost $200 a month for me to get the most basic catastrophe insurance. I would still have deductibles to meet, still have co-pays, still have potentially thousands of dollars of out of pocket expense for an illness or accident. And it would cost me more than food does a month for something that could still bankrupt me and that I hope I would not ever use.

I would rather pay slightly higher taxes (yeah I said it) and know that I was covered, because those taxes could never possibly add up to what it would cost me to pay for private health care myself, or cost me as much as it would if I ever got sick while on that private plan. Not everyone can work for a big company and be covered. Lots of people work for small businesses or want to start them. Lots of people freelance. Lots of people, especially right now, are in between jobs and many artists/actors/entertainers may never have jobs that are covered. Do we not count?

So I'm marching tomorrow. I hope I'm not alone. And I really hope our Senators, and Obama, and Hillary and everyone else who has the power to make a change follows through and we finally, FINALLY, have what most other first world countries take for granted.

No comments:

Post a Comment