Health Care Reform

For those of you who have been living under a rock for the last year: The Unites States of America is the only industrialized country without Universal Health Care. That means that 45 million Americans can’t go the hospital without paying hundreds, if not thousands of dollars for a doctor’s visit. It is estimated that 22,000 people die every year as a result of not being able to receive routine preventative treatment. The disparity between the insured and uninsured is currently the worst it has been in the history of the country, and The National Coalition on Health Care warns that this disparity will continue to grow every year.

There is nothing knew about this information, and yet, still, factions of government and right wing media still rally against the call for change. Rush Limbaugh, a man who needs no introduction, recently said on his radio show that the Democrats want to reform health care so that they can, “...deny health care to those that oppose them.” The rest of the industrialized world has created a system that works, a system that gives all of its citizen’s access to a doctor, so why is it so difficult for some to fathom that America might take similar steps to create a universal system of their own? Instead, because of delusional opposition, America must wait with its hands tied as the political process attempts to work its course.

Critics to health care reform have attempted to use the ‘expense’ angle of the re-haul as an excuse to do nothing. However, as things stand now America manages to outspend all other countries in the world with its current system, approximately 2.24 million dollars – 40 percent more capita, despite being the only industrialized country without universal health care. Spending more and getting less is always a raw deal.

The NCHC also reported that the current system has negatively impacted the rate at which jobs are growing, as companies have to deal with the expensive costs of insuring workers. It also states that the current American medical system puts American businesses at a disadvantage in world markets.

If expense isn’t the weapon of choice being wielded by angry naysayers than the idea of ‘depriving people of important services’ typically follows. Limbaugh shouted on the radio that, “all of us will be slaves" because of the “arbitrary and inhumane decisions of distant bureaucrats working in Washington.” This idea of death panels was a myth created by Betsy McCaughey, a Republican Lieutenant Governor, who eventually resigned from her position after receiving intense scrutiny for her made up death panel position. Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin propagated the story of death panels despite it being refuted many times over. Palin would also resign stating personal reasons.

In an NPR story titled What Americans Really Think About Health Care it was found that 51 percent of Americans feel that the country will be better off if health care reform passes – not exactly a resounding yes. Linda Wertheimer, a report who travels the globe for NPR news, summed up the current stalemate in her podcast by saying, “...Change is something that people thought that they wanted in the election season, but confronting actual change, maybe not so excited.”