My Republican friends say the health care reform bill that is currently being considered is the worse thing ever, that it is socialism and we can’t possibly have a government run health program in this country. My Democratic friends say that the bill is the best thing ever and we should all get behind it without question and of course a government run health program will be wonderful.
And there are people of both parties over the age of 65 who swear this country is going down the tubes. They are sure we are heading straight toward Communism if we put a national health care program in place. But, of course those same people happily walk through the door of their doctor’s office with their government run Medicare cards in hand and get all the care and testing they need. According to the 2000 census there were about 35 million people over age 65 at that time.
It is all the people under the age of 65 who are the ones potentially in trouble with health care.
Insurance companies can look at you and decide they don’t want to cover you for any reason they choose. They can drop you if you get sick which is right at the time you need them. And they can raise premiums, following state imposed guidelines, whenever they want. To offer you some relief from the higher premiums, you can switch to a higher deductible. In other words they dangle the carrot ever farther out, but can ultimately yank it away completely.
Hospitals charge thousands of dollars for spending 4 hours in an emergency room. They have lots of high tech equipment and highly trained staff, but does a piece of gauze for your wound really cost that much more than what you can buy at the corner drugstore? That is, if you can even get an itemized bill from them to see what they charged for anything.
With over 1,000 pages in the proposed health care bill we should all have lots of questions about it. Is the entire document somewhere on the internet for all of us to read? I think it should be. There are lots of very intelligent people out here who might be able to offer some wonderful suggestions. And I think we should see all the “pork” that gets tacked onto it. This is one bill more than any other one in history that should be passed on its own merit…pork free!
I don’t think that the 435 representatives, 100 senators and one man with a pen should be able to decide something of this magnitude without input from the people it will actually affect. Stop the party line bickering. Stop citing only the parts that make your parties point about the good or bad aspects of this bill.
According to census.gov the current projected population of the United States is 307, 535,852 people. We are looking to 535 people to create this reform. In other words .00000174th of the population gets to decide what to do for the other 99.99999826th of us. By the way, are you 535 people going to toss out your current plan and join this plan that you create? Some reports I have heard say it is exactly the same as what you have. But, how would I know?
To all members of Congress I would like to say this – stop trying to “be right” and start trying to “do what is right”. Figure it out – that’s what you were elected to do and that is what you are being paid to do.
By Paula Scanland
Julia said,
September 29, 2009 at 12:39 pm
I think we need a Medicare reworking. They deduct money from my check every month and then the doctors and clinics figured out a way to cheat! They are fraudulently over billing and creating patients who aren’t even being treated. How can this happen? Fictitious people getting treatment for major surgeries and they don’t even exist! This is happening now, I’ve seen it.
A friend who was Mexican got his card stolen and found out two years later they billed him for his co-pay on back surgery, medication and even on going therapy.
Who is watching the store? How can you be charged $110.00 for a package of 5 bandages?