Is basic healthcare a right? This is a controversy politicians are arguing today more than ever.
Have you ever heard of the saying "If it's not broken then don't try to fix it." I would think this pertains to our healthcare system. Many would argue that America's healthcare is the best in world. Besides, not many countries get to decide what doctor they would like to see, nor do they get the freedom of choosing to have the best care money can buy. I thought America was all about choice, and if I want to have the best primary I can afford without having to wait in lines to receive my annual check up then I will.
The problems with Obama's health care proposal are contradictory to what he is trying to accomplish. Senator Chuck Grassley urges "by having government run the health care industry, this would drive private insurers out of business and lead to a government takeover of the health care system." Simply put, driving out the competition in turns causes people to lose jobs, and all this time I thought Obama's plan was to open more job opportunities for people hurting in the recession
Professor Regina Herzlinger of Harvard Business School makes this correlation to a car dealership by stating, "the high-cost cars and absence of entrepreneurs and competition will skyrocket costs and force government to ration cars." This rationing of health care is kind of like the rationing that was done back in WW II with butter, gasoline, and bread to insure the soldiers were prepared and taken care of. “The government, through Medicare or state Medicaid or other programs, keeps costs lower as much as possible in order to keeps taxes lower, or to expand care to others, both considered to be the greater good,” argues Trisha Torrey, About.com Guide, What Is Healthcare Rationing? But the problem with the healthcare bill is that it imposes new fees and taxes directly onto the consumer in turn causing the premium to increase well before the bill is even established. The problem is that the with the new health bill is that consumers don’t have the choice of receiving a procedure even if they have the money. Who says that expanding care to others is for the greater good? “Some of us want to reduce the overall cost of the legislation, try to reduce the government’s role, make it harder for illegal immigrants to get benefits, allow alternatives to the individual mandate and harsh penalties, and reward states with extra Medicaid dollars if they pass medical malpractice reform,” explains Senator Grassley. And I agree 100% with this new bill still does not fix our health care system it just creates a bigger mess along with making more people, such as myself angry, because people who make over $100,000 are taxed more which means they have to compensate for those who still don’t have health care.
Senator Grassley also goes on to point out that "The bills will cause insurance premiums for scores of people, especially those who are relatively young and healthy, to go up, not down... after forcing premiums to go up, the legislation makes it mandatory to buy health insurance." This again goes back to choice, if we as Americans don't have a say on the healthcare we receive and are forced to pay for something the government deemed ' fair for all ' then we are not practicing the constitution our forefathers stood for. We ultimately will become a socialist nation.
Have you ever heard of the saying "If it's not broken then don't try to fix it." I would think this pertains to our healthcare system. Many would argue that America's healthcare is the best in world. Besides, not many countries get to decide what doctor they would like to see, nor do they get the freedom of choosing to have the best care money can buy. I thought America was all about choice, and if I want to have the best primary I can afford without having to wait in lines to receive my annual check up then I will.
The problems with Obama's health care proposal are contradictory to what he is trying to accomplish. Senator Chuck Grassley urges "by having government run the health care industry, this would drive private insurers out of business and lead to a government takeover of the health care system." Simply put, driving out the competition in turns causes people to lose jobs, and all this time I thought Obama's plan was to open more job opportunities for people hurting in the recession
Professor Regina Herzlinger of Harvard Business School makes this correlation to a car dealership by stating, "the high-cost cars and absence of entrepreneurs and competition will skyrocket costs and force government to ration cars." This rationing of health care is kind of like the rationing that was done back in WW II with butter, gasoline, and bread to insure the soldiers were prepared and taken care of. “The government, through Medicare or state Medicaid or other programs, keeps costs lower as much as possible in order to keeps taxes lower, or to expand care to others, both considered to be the greater good,” argues Trisha Torrey, About.com Guide, What Is Healthcare Rationing? But the problem with the healthcare bill is that it imposes new fees and taxes directly onto the consumer in turn causing the premium to increase well before the bill is even established. The problem is that the with the new health bill is that consumers don’t have the choice of receiving a procedure even if they have the money. Who says that expanding care to others is for the greater good? “Some of us want to reduce the overall cost of the legislation, try to reduce the government’s role, make it harder for illegal immigrants to get benefits, allow alternatives to the individual mandate and harsh penalties, and reward states with extra Medicaid dollars if they pass medical malpractice reform,” explains Senator Grassley. And I agree 100% with this new bill still does not fix our health care system it just creates a bigger mess along with making more people, such as myself angry, because people who make over $100,000 are taxed more which means they have to compensate for those who still don’t have health care.
Senator Grassley also goes on to point out that "The bills will cause insurance premiums for scores of people, especially those who are relatively young and healthy, to go up, not down... after forcing premiums to go up, the legislation makes it mandatory to buy health insurance." This again goes back to choice, if we as Americans don't have a say on the healthcare we receive and are forced to pay for something the government deemed ' fair for all ' then we are not practicing the constitution our forefathers stood for. We ultimately will become a socialist nation.
I respect your opinion but have you read what the health care reform would be? And if you think our health care system is the best then maybe you might want to double check your sources. What the president tries to argue is the need of health care in this country and how its run as a monopoly with little care left for the customers. The system is flawed by them choosing which person to cover and leaving thousands of American uninsured, every person should have the right to health care and that is not what we have in this country.
ReplyDeleteI actually fell as if the healthcare system Obama is trying to utilize is the monopoly because he isn't giving the private insures, doctors, or patients a choice as to what form of health care or insurance they choose. That is the beauty of our health care system now, if you have the funds then you have your pick of top quality. I don't believe a person is entitled to healthcare. Now don't go thinking I expect them to bleed out on the street, I just think Americans should have a choice in as to whether or not the receive it.
ReplyDeleteIt's me again! As I'm sure you've noticed by now, I'm not someone you could call a "conservative" so for me access to healthcare is absolutely a basic human right, at least a basic right of an American Citizen, or someone legally residing in the country.
ReplyDeleteThat being said what struck me as most odd about this post is your usage of the saying "if it's not broken, then don't try to fix it". I'm pretty sure that Democrats and Republicans can agree on the fact that our healthcare system is broken and needs fixing, ASAP! (Hence the Ryan Plan)
For the past several years Americans have been faced with rising costs of healthcare while watching the coverage those costs provide diminish. From the year 2007 until late 2009 I was a full time employee for the same company and chose to receive the employee benefits such as healthcare. Each year we were called into the conference room for our annual benefits meeting, and each year we were told that we would be switching to a new healthcare provider because we could no longer afford to stay with the same provider. With the change to each new company we were told that the costs of our premiums would increase while our benefits decreased. I watched the frustration on the faces of the employees who had large families, and would have to re-work their budgets to fit in the rising costs of taking care of them.
This past August I was faced with the same dilemma when it came time for me to renew my student health insurance through USF. I was forced to look elsewhere for health insurance when the cost of my premium went up and again my benefits decreased. This is a major problem for many Americans who can't afford to pay more each year for health insurance. Health insurance that doesn't even cover everything needed such as unexpected trips to the emergency room, prescription drugs and things as simple as braces or a pair of glasses.
What Obama's Healthcare Plan aims to do is make healthcare available and affordable to everyone who deserves it. Most importantly his plan moves to eliminate the ability of insurance companies to deny coverage to someone based on a preexisting condition, something that I am struggling with right now. His plan will extend coverage to over 32 million Americans who are currently uninsured, not to sure how that will eliminate jobs... and the tax increase you spoke of in your post would only go to families making $250,000 or more a year (not $100,000) and only on "unearned income" or investment income.
I know we will most likely never agree on whether this plan is a good one, or whether the government should be able to enforce things such as healthcare coverage, and I am not saying that Obama's plan has all the right answers, but I do believe it is a step in the right direction.
Our healthcare system being broken? That is a lie. The healthcare system of the USA is the best in the world. Never mind the assurance of the WHO which rating the US, 37th in the world, as we (The USA) get poor marks for NOT HAVING SOCIALIZED HEALTHCARE.
ReplyDeleteHealthcare is what you do for yourself, medical care is what a doctor does for you, and if you don’t provide yourself with the right “healthcare” no amount of medical care will help. As Thomas Sowell, an American economist and is currently a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, has written:
“Like so many clever things that are said, this argument depends on confusing very different things-- namely, "health care" and "medical care." Medical care is a limited part of health care. What we do and don't do in the way we live our lives affects our health and our longevity, in many cases more so than what doctors can do to provide medical care…If we want to compare the effects of medical care, as such, in the United States with that in other countries with government-run medical systems, then we need to compare things where medical care is what matters most, such as survival rates of people with cancer. The United States has one of the highest rates of cancer survival in the world-- and for some cancers, the number one rate of survival.”
We are constantly being told by legislators that the medical insurance should provide coverage for things that have nothing to do with the risk associated with medical insurance. In Sally Pipe’s book, “The Top Ten Myths about American Health Care,” she explains this in great detail. Among other items, she explains the reason why pharmaceutical drugs cost so much, why it is misleading to talk about uninsured Americans as if they do not get medical care, and how politicians make existing insurance more expensive by blithely mandating coverage that people would not voluntarily pay for with their own money, if it was left up to them.
Why should a 21 year old male, in perfect health, have to pay for a medical plan that covers: breast reductions. IVF treatments. Sex-change operations. Mental Health issues. Birth Control Pills. Well Baby Care, and the list goes on and on. In various states, these mandated coverages also include alcoholism, acupuncture, and treatment for baldness, among other things. You may just want insurance to cover you in case you get hit with some big-time medical problem, but many state laws will not allow an insurance company to sell you "major medical" coverage without all the add-ons that politicians and special interests have come up with. The more politicians pile on coverage for which medical insurance was not intended, the more your medical insurance premiums will rise. It’s called, “basic economics.”
As for medical insurance covering everything, it’s not meant to cover everything. Medical insurance is to help pay for your medical bills, but there is no insurance policy in existence that will cover every contingency.
Yes, medical insurance has always excluded pre-existing conditions. Let me ask you, if you had to pay – out of your own bank account – for medical care to a person wherein you know has a pre-existing condition that would clean your account dry, would you provide coverage for that condition? BTW, just because your medical insurance doesn’t cover the condition that does not mean that you cannot get medical care in this country. We have crazy laws on the books, telling hospital that they are required to provide medical assistance to individuals that cannot afford to pay, and where do you think that hospital will get the money that’s been lost? By the individuals that have medical insurance, yet another reason that our insurance premiums have increased.
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ReplyDeletePlease explain how you think that government run health care will be less expensive. If you involve the government in your healthcare that is just another layer of administration that adds to the cost of any produce, not decrease the cost. The government will either shift the cost of medical care, or deny coverage, as they have already done with reducing payments to doctors that take Medicare and Medicaid.
If you read the Constitution of the United States, you will find that the government does not have the authority to mandate that Americans purchase health insurance. If the government really wanted to help Americans with medical costs, it would let health insurance companies run their own business, let insurance company compete across state lines, stop forcing insurance companies to provide coverage that the insurance companies would never provide – for everyone, and stop going around telling Americans that health care is a basic right, which is nowhere in the constitution, nor in the teachings of the bible. Our rights come from God, not from the federal government.
BTW, how do you know that Obamacare is a step in the right direction? Did you read all 2000+ pages of that health care bill?
Obviously, like I said, our views on the issue differ drastically. As I stated in my first response to your post, I do not feel that OBAMA'S HEALTHCARE PLAN (not "Obamacare") has all the right answers. I have not read all 2000 pages of the bill, haven't had time yet, but I'll let you know when I'm done.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I’d like to thank you for so generously defining the difference between healthcare and medical care but I think you may be the one confusing the two here. I have no doubt that we have some of the best “medical care” available, America has some of the leading programs on cancer research and I am happy to hear that we have one of the highest cancer survival rates in the world. I never said that this was the issue; the issue at hand here is whether or not the people that need the “medical care” are getting it. If you can’t afford the care in the first place then it doesn’t matter how great the doctor is. If you think, as I’m assuming from your argument that you do, that our “healthcare” system is in fact not broken and needs no fixing then you are sorely mistaken. This is just simply not the view that many Americans hold, and unfortunately for you neither does our President.
I will give you credit for your argument about the fact that medical insurance companies are not able to cover EVERYTHING, but the current amount of coverage offered is just simply not enough, at least not enough to make me happy. You’re right it should cover our medical bills but insurance is something people purchase to cover themselves when the unexpected happens, this should also be covered on insurance plans, and more often than not it isn’t.
My current insurance policy excludes coverage for my preexisting condition, my left knee, (yes my left knee is excluded from my insurance policy, just one body part). If something were to happen to it again, I have already been told by several doctors that I would need surgery, something I can surely not afford. I’m pretty sure covering this surgery, or even physical therapy instead would not cause United Healthcare to go bankrupt, especially since their revenue for 2010 was over $87 billion. Let’s not start defending insurance companies here; they’ve got billions to spend on lobbyists to do the defending for them. I think letting insurance companies “run their own business” has gotten us into this mess in the first place.
As far as your belief that healthcare is not a basic human right, I will leave you with a little quote that I found in THE CONSTITUTION...
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
wel•fare/ˈwelˌfe(ə)r/Noun
1. The health, happiness, and fortunes of a person or group
I will not be quoting the bible next because I’m pretty sure the government has established a system that separates church and state, so the belief that our rights come from God does not pertain to this debate.