Overhaul our SICK system
If you've gone to an ER recently, you know our system needs an overhaul. My last ER trip, I entered the ER at 10:30 PM and left a little before 7 A.M. How does our system contribute to long waits in the ER? So many people go to the ER who should be going to their primary care physician. But many people don't have one.
We've got a crazy system that pays lip service to preventative medicine. Poor people without health insurance don't go to the doctor. They can't afford to. They treat themselves with OTC medication and home remedies. And instead of cheap drugs that could've helped them, once their condition has metastasized to something worse, THEN they come to the ER. By then we're talking thousand of dollars that they won't be able to pay, that gets passed on to everyone else's medical bills. Our system is set up so that those without health care insurance end up seeking the costliest form of care.
Then there's the problem of illegals who use hospital services and can't pay. Seventy percent of baby deliveries at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas last year were to illegal aliens. Do you think they paid for those deliveries?
To treat health care like a commodity...like anything else you'd buy or sell is immoral. We deem having an educated nation so important to our national security that we pay for a public education system nationwide. Not only that. We require children to attend them. It's important to have an educated workforce. Is it not equally important to have a healthy workforce?
Some things are better even if the French do it. We owe it to our citizens to at least explore these other systems. We're smart enough to look at what they're doing right and borrow it and leave behind what they're doing wrong.
It's insane that someone has to fear an illness wiping them out. Unless one is very wealthy, a major illness in America can make anyone homeless. That's not right. It's not right that a person should have to sell their home in order to live.
In "SiCKO", Michael Moore asks a Canadian man why another person should have to pay for his health care and the man said, "Because I'd do it for them." Sounds like a good answer to me. But to too many people, it's.....AWK.....socialism! What's next? Godless Communism?
In America, the land of liberty, of freedom, the message shouldn't be 'every man for himself.' What is that? How do you have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness if your ill and can't get better because you can't afford it?
To implement a new system will require battling huge monied interests. The insurance companies and the Congresspeople they own aren't going to roll over and surrender. Plus we have a public that has bought into this red scare. We have a public conditioned to be fearful of "socialized medicine" even while they partake of many different socialized services in their daily lives. No doubt taxes would have to be raised, but I don't think people would mind if they could end up with a system like France has.
We gotta do something. Start by seeing this movie.
We've got a crazy system that pays lip service to preventative medicine. Poor people without health insurance don't go to the doctor. They can't afford to. They treat themselves with OTC medication and home remedies. And instead of cheap drugs that could've helped them, once their condition has metastasized to something worse, THEN they come to the ER. By then we're talking thousand of dollars that they won't be able to pay, that gets passed on to everyone else's medical bills. Our system is set up so that those without health care insurance end up seeking the costliest form of care.
Then there's the problem of illegals who use hospital services and can't pay. Seventy percent of baby deliveries at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas last year were to illegal aliens. Do you think they paid for those deliveries?
To treat health care like a commodity...like anything else you'd buy or sell is immoral. We deem having an educated nation so important to our national security that we pay for a public education system nationwide. Not only that. We require children to attend them. It's important to have an educated workforce. Is it not equally important to have a healthy workforce?
Some things are better even if the French do it. We owe it to our citizens to at least explore these other systems. We're smart enough to look at what they're doing right and borrow it and leave behind what they're doing wrong.
It's insane that someone has to fear an illness wiping them out. Unless one is very wealthy, a major illness in America can make anyone homeless. That's not right. It's not right that a person should have to sell their home in order to live.
In "SiCKO", Michael Moore asks a Canadian man why another person should have to pay for his health care and the man said, "Because I'd do it for them." Sounds like a good answer to me. But to too many people, it's.....AWK.....socialism! What's next? Godless Communism?
In America, the land of liberty, of freedom, the message shouldn't be 'every man for himself.' What is that? How do you have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness if your ill and can't get better because you can't afford it?
To implement a new system will require battling huge monied interests. The insurance companies and the Congresspeople they own aren't going to roll over and surrender. Plus we have a public that has bought into this red scare. We have a public conditioned to be fearful of "socialized medicine" even while they partake of many different socialized services in their daily lives. No doubt taxes would have to be raised, but I don't think people would mind if they could end up with a system like France has.
We gotta do something. Start by seeing this movie.
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