By: Tevis Blom
For some time I have had positive thoughts about nationalized health-care. My experiences with insurance companies, HMO's, and 'Western Medicine' have left a sinking feeling that our 'health care providers' care very little about our actual well being. Having been without insurance in the past, I was eager for some sort of nationalized care.
I engaged in a [friendly] debate with my father about the health care scenario recently, and I believe he has changed my mind. His argument was this: In San Jose, CA, in the 1990's, the state of public schools was such that schools were closing and students were being crowded into schools that remained open. The high school I would have attended had subsequent overcrowding problems, gang issues, lack of adequate services, etc. My parents decided that perhaps private school was an option.
My father's simple argument was this: If a state can not successfully run its schools, then how can it possibly run health-care? He furthered his argument by noting that he had to pay taxes that supported schools he no longer used, and received no tax break on tuition to a private school (tuition that was payed with wages already taxed). In the case of health care, he argued that he would be paying for services that he would "prefer not to use", I.e. in his mind he'd rather pay for private care than deal with "governmental health care".
If health care achieves the same standards of excellence as academics in our country, I think I will be searching for private care!
4 comments:
That is a very strong argument, and in your dad's case I would definitely be swayed to oppose government run health care, especially because of what he saw happening. However, when you base an argument like that on a school district closing and the ensuing difficulties, in addition to the tax inequalities in your dad's situation, it leaves out the other half of the spectrum. Using you dad's point of view, what can we then say about districts that have really good schools because of a higher income bracket residents etc. That would mean that the relationship between school districts and health care would most likely sway you to want government involvement. I think that government involvement in the case of school districts is a really good indicator of how well government functions, but if we are going to use that line of reasoning I think it is important to take into account the whole spectrum.
I do understand this comparison of public schools with public healthcare, but in the end we can't compare these two public issues. I think Harrison Ferrone has a great point in saying that many people had great public schooling. There are so many issues that regulate schooling. One counter argument to that if healthcare becomes public, under my understanding, we will be able to choose which hospital we visit. Under this idea it wouldn't really matter if you lived in Compton, because you could go to beverly hills and get better healthcare. My biggest fear, as I approach the end of college and therefore the end of my parent's insurance, how will I pay for healthcare? What happens if I don't get a big time job that gives me benefits? Essentially if this happens. I have no healthcare, not healthcare that "I don't prefer", but absolutely no support.
andrew sieving
After reading an article on the myths about the American healthcare system I decided to search for one that compared our system to others around the world. I found this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/21/AR2009082101778_3.html?referrer=facebook
I think it does a good job dissecting some of the fallacies or even truths a lot of Americans believe about our system. Furthermore, the most important message I took away from the article is that the goal of our healthcare system (including insurance companies) is to make a profit. This is the fundamental difference between our healthcare system and foreign health insurance plans. Foreign health insurance plans solely exist to pay for peoples medical treatment, not to make a profit. The US healthcare system is the only one in world that allows insurance companies to profit from basic health coverage.
Check out this article today in the NY Times. It is just basically talking about what we already know-- our current health care system does not work, even though we spend twice as much on health care as some countries in Europe. The reason that we spend twice as much on health care is that the US overall is a fat, unhealthy country! We have a much higher rate of obesity and diabetes compared to most other countries!! Solution= fix food first (what we eat), then fix health care.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/opinion/10pollan.html?_r=1
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