Let Congress Go Without Insurance
I’m getting pretty sick of how ridiculous a notion it is for American citizens to go without access to health insurance, to not be able to afford health insurance, and, in some instances, including mine, be forced to pay insane medical bills even with the appropriate insurance. It’s both embarrassing and infuriating for me; I can’t imagine how the uninsured must feel.
The cost associated with the proposed health care reform is perhaps the most commonly cited reason against implementing it. Who cares, I say. We are making a lot of poor choices in spending a lot of money in a lot of other places; my feeling is that we need this, and despite its cost, we need to make it work somehow. The politicking surrounding this issue has become nauseating, and we have to start deconstructing it and looking at it for what it will provide from a moral and social standpoint instead of what it may or may not lead to from a financial standpoint. It trumps most other things in my opinion, and it’s a relief to read that others feel the same way.
This is one of the best articles I’ve read in a long, long time. A few choice snippets from the article:
Congressional critics of President Obama’s efforts to achieve health reform worry that universal coverage will be expensive, while their priority is to curb social spending. So [forgoing health insurance is] their chance to save government dollars in keeping with their own priorities.
Those same critics sometimes argue that universal coverage needn’t be a top priority because anybody can get coverage at the emergency room. Let them try that with their kids.
In January 1917, Progressive Magazine wrote: “At present the United States has the unenviable distinction of being the only great industrial nation without universal health insurance.” More than 90 years later, we still have that distinction.
When nearly 3,000 people were killed on 9/11, we began wars and were willing to devote more than $1 trillion in additional expenses. Yet about the same number of Americans die from our failed insurance system every three weeks.
Dead on the money. It’s a must-read.
