by: Matt McReynolds
I believe a public option on health care is a fair and responsible thing to do for the American people. It will bring competition to the health insurance industry therefore lowering costs and expanding access to Americans currently without coverage. I believe this is the only right thing to do especially considering the current advanced state of the medical field with seemingly “miracle” vaccinations that save lives. If you are sick and cannot afford medicine, you should not have to suffer and possibly die for financial reasons.
This is a humanitarian issue to me and it is the responsibility of the government to provide the best possible wellbeing and health for ALL of its citizens. You are now designating Americans into two groups: the ones that can afford “to survive” and the ones that cannot (no matter how small the percentage), essentially. We are basically saying these people are unimportant in our society because they are too poor and are not worth helping maintain their health and essentially are hung out to dry.
Opponents of the public option contend a public option would drive private insurers from the market and lead to an eventual government takeover of the health care system. Then there are radical claims of socialism and ridicules things of that nature including a senator shouting out “liar, you lie” at the president during a Congressional speech on the same topic. I honestly believe this is another case of the powerful special interests in Washington showing their influence over American politics. A recent article claimed the public option might pass if states are allowed to possibly “opt out” of it (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/22/health.care/index.html). Do the right thing America!
7 comments:
My wife is from Australia and she worked in a ophthalmologist health clinic in New York City for a couple of months a few years ago and couldn't believe our health care system here. It wasn't until the end stages of blindness that poor people without health insurance where accepted into the clinic, but by then they had suffered irreversible damage and many went blind. If they only had insurance they would have been able to check in sooner and be cured. Who knows? maybe they couldn't get jobs because they had trouble seeing. In oz they do in fact have a basic public health care system and it works great. Being a resident of Australia now, I even receive the benefits!!
Matt, I'm with you! Let's get this thing done. WE can't call ourselves the richest nation in the world, and have second rate health care.
If you look at our health care costs as students – roughly $2500/year – it represents a HUGE percentage of our income. Pretend that's a tax, and it's outrageous. Even if a student makes $40,000 (I don't!) that's over 5% of their income. RIDICULOUS!
Making health care public will help people who right now can't afford health care because it will increase competition in the health care market and then reduce prices of care. I agree with you; America needs to make the right choice so that people in need will be able to get their care. As for the republican senators thinking that this will lead to a government takeover, what is so wrong with a socialist system?
I don't understand why some people are so resentful of the public option. How is introducing competition into the market socialist? Has competition led to socialism in other markets? Opponents seem to think its an OPTION and they don't have to use it if they think it is inferior to private health care coverage. Another thing is that people are saying it will take money out of social security/medicare. These are government provided health services. Saying that you oppose the public option (and competition) because it leads to socialism makes no sense if your beef is that it takes away from programs you like that also happen to be "socialist".
The public option would add competition to the insurance market, and decrease the monopoly-like characteristics of insurance companies. Either you make one national health care system or you increase the market so that it is affordable.
I agree Chris, I lived in Australia and was blown away at how nice and easy their system is. I American roommate had to go to the ER while we lived there and they didn’t ask any questions when we got there, just fixed her up and were setting us on our way and we remembered we were not include din their system and probably owed something, we asked the hospital what we owed, they didn’t even know how to calculate it and just said to give them fifty bucks! I pay close to fifty bucks for a co pay plus the cost of the procedure!
I completely disagree with, no offense, but if the government offers subsidized healthcare, private providers will be driven out of business and thus requiring all citizens to enroll in the government run option, which is what the white house wants. The plan will, in ten years, cost trillions more then they tell us now because medicare now costs 3000% more then what we were told it was going to cost when it was created. There are not enough rich people to tax to pay for this and it is one of many steps this administration has taken to control more and more of this countries economy.
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