When you hear "healthcare," what comes to mind? Vivid images of infinitely long waiting room lines and mediocre doctors? Meager paychecks due to horrific tax rates? Yet another government-run program and the beginnings of socialism? Instead of a knee-jerk reaction (one that is honestly completely validated considering the state of our country's balance of payments), let's remember what's behind all this "socialism" nonsense: our fellow Americans.
No matter what side of the fence you sit on, it would be hard for any decent person to say that not everyone deserves accessable healthcare. Sure, in principle, we all agree, but things get a little touchy when we begin discussing logistics: How can we care for those who can't pay for it? I earn my own money, so what if I only want to pay for my own healthcare? How can we make sure the standard of care won't go down? Shouldn't we work to lower the exorbitant costs of care first? Yes, these are all important questions to consider, but we also can't ignore the basics: you're asking those questions from a very fortunate position. You probably have insurance and no trouble paying for your care, but unfortunately, a lot of Americans are left out and have little to no access to even basic procedures. And if they can't go to a clinic to get care due to lack of insurance, they go to the ER. And when that happens, you and I are the ones who end up covering the costs. So, the idea is that if we extend insurance coverage to more people, this little scenario won't happen. Another solution is to work to lower the horrible high costs medical bills often ended up amounting to.
But despite all those quintessential arguments we tend to bring up, we're leaving out the human element; that part of the story that will tug at your heart strings--and should! To explain, let me share a story that a friend told me; why he agrees with the healthcare proposal. Not because he loves high taxes or because he doesn't notice our current economic meltdown, but because of a condition he was born with--Cystic Fibrosis.
"I agree with it [the healthcare plan] based on one big thing. Once I'm not a full time student, I have to find an employer who has good insurance because I have a disease that I was diagnosed with at birth and therefore have a pre-existing condition."And if you're unfamiliar with this part of the issue, it's incredibly difficult to find insurance on your own when one has a pre-existing condition, and his job hunt after college will have an extra stress the rest of us don't have to worry about. Job-hunting will have to marry insurance-hunting. And if he can't find an insurance plan that covers something he can't control? Then he'll have to pay outrageous amounts of money for treatment. Treatments that already exist, but he may not have access to simply because of cost. Now how is that fair?
But it gets even less fair. He goes on to explain,
"Also along with my disease, you can test to see if babies have my disease before they are even born. And there is medication being tested right now that would be able to minimize the effects of CF to almost nothing. But testing a baby for a disease before they are born then means that they have a pre-existing condition and the second that baby is born, the family will more than likely be dropped from their health insurance. With the new health insurance, CF, a terminal disease, can be very close to having a cure."Makes it a little harder to say our care system doesn't need some work, right? Maybe the House and Senate bills aren't the right solution--they do indeed have a lot of pork and the process employed to get them passed before the New Year was nothing short of ridiculous. But they were a step in the right direction. Our health system needs work, and we need to pull down our ever-high, ever-guarded Republican-Democrat fences and work together to fix it. It isn't a party issue, it's a people issue. We can't throw the idea away just because we'll have to be creative in how to actually implement it in a way that works for everyone--whether you're rich, poor, liberal, or conservative.
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