No Lesser Evil: Health Insurance
Health insurance is something I don’t explode about very much here, but in case you haven’t guessed yet, I have a lot more Internal ‘Splody than I have time to type. ;) In real life, both of my parents have medical backgrounds — one very much so — and I live in a state where health care is a bad joke, from Medicaid on up to vile money-grabbing hospital policies, so actually I rant quite a bit about this, at least offline.
I’m your typical humanist, I suppose. I’m in favor of universally-provided health care, and I think that capitalist corporations are supremely poorly suited to provide it. That doesn’t necessarily mean that governments should; but whoever does, their primary stated concern should not be profit — it should be health. This, I think, is one of those painfully obvious things that doesn’t get said enough.
There isn’t much that I can do to uphold my own beliefs in the real world, though. I’m not rich enough to pay for medical care on my own, or to buy private health insurance (the cost for just myself and my husband would be as much as my rent), and I fell into the huge pool of full-time family-supporting workers who aren’t provided health insurance years ago. I study up on natural, home-brewed medicine for everything I can safely treat on my own (as you’ve probably noticed), and we try to practice good prevention and stay healthy in my family, and the rest of the time we cross our fingers and wait for some stupid accident to decimate our life savings, all hail America.
But enough about me — what about you guys? Tick the poll, and tell everybody what you think in the comments.
Do you have Health Insurance?
19 devoted students of Roshi accepted this page in 0.254 seconds without moving, or saying a word.
Hmm. I didn’t vote in the poll because I’m in Ontario and I don’t know if I have health insurance? There’s the whole health-card thing, and my Dad works for the MTO so dental’s covered there (for now) and health might be too..?
With regards to what I think, I think that health care should be available for everyone, not just the rich. I also don’t think that people should go to the doctor unless they absolutely need to - if it’s just a cold, wait for it to stop and drink OJ and stuff. I highly doubt it’s a symptom of something else, and that you need a prescription. And if it IS a symptom of something else and because you didn’t go to the doctor early you get sick(er) and die… well then, population decrease! (That sounded harsh, but I haven’t much tact at times and that really is my opinion. Hence me not donating blood or my organs… though I do really want to know what my blood type is. sigh.)
That says a lot, ’stine … You have what we in the U.S. droolingly call “Universal Health Care”, and which we’ll probably never have because it would result in about two hundred instantaneous Republican heart-attacks. *sigh*
Looking at the results, I’m betting that a lot of the replies aren’t coming from the U.S. I should have asked, but sometimes I forget how International my audience is. (I love it, but I forget it. I need a way to mine the awesome resource of my multi-homelanded readership!)