Daily Kos: In the civilized world, an economic collapse doesn't also involve losing health benefits

In France, the European Union, the rest of the industrialized world (but not in the United States), healthcare is a right of citizenship. During an economic downturn, Americans face daunting odds, access to healthcare is one of the first luxuries to disappear.

I just finished reading the excellent diaries by bonddad and Jerome a Paris. Please forgive my random and panicked thoughts. But I am panicked just like all of us.

One huge thought is circulating through my brain. And I'm sorry to say this.  We Americans are not very lucky.  If we lived in any other industrialized nation, we would not need to add to all the other crises bearing down on us, how to come up with the scratch to pay for healthcare.

But we do. In the United States, healthcare is business, and if you can't pay for it, you don't get it--except as Mister Bush tell us, all is good because you can go to an emergency room.

What they fail to tell you is that in the "rest of the industrialized world", they pay upwards of $8 a gallon for gas, of which the majority is taxes.  There are taxes literally EVERYWHERE to help pay for such things.

You think that Americans are going to pay almost 3 times that they do now for gas simply so that some other person doesn't have to spend more money on their health care bill?

If you do, you're out of your mind.

But let's talk about the "industrialized world" shall we?

What about the constant CCTV surveillance?  What about the cars that are so small because of the gas prices that they are very unsafe?

Didn't think of that did you?

Health care isn't a right.  I know it sounds cruel, but it isn't.  Freedom of speech, Freedom of religion, to keep and bear arms;  These are rights.  You not wearing a seatbelt and getting into a car accident doesn't mean that everyone else should pay for it.

You eating improperly and needing a heart bypass surgery doesn't mean everyone else should pay for it.

Sometimes bad things happen to good people, but that doesn't mean that we should all spend even more money on a system that's ripe for abuse.

 

 

Travis

travis@rightwinglunatic.com