Monday, June 22, 2009

Nat. Health Care may cause real crisis

As I wrote two days ago, I'm not convinced there really is a health care crisis, that is is manufactured by the media and politicians.

I say this because we are told there are people suffering becaue they don't have access to healthcare, but when you ask around, you don't see it; you don't see people not getting healthcare. In fact, it's not possible for ERs to turn sick people down -- it's against the law.

What we need to do in this country is teach people that they don't need to go to the hospital for every little cold, every little cut, every little mole they discover on their bodies while taking a shower in the morning.

I remember when I was a kid felt sick my mom would put me in her bed and there I would stay for the next few days. I remember having headaches so bad, and being so nauseous I thought i was going to die. But mom never took me to the ER. I survived.

That's how it used to be when people paid for their own health care. That's how it was when people were forced to be frugal because they didn't want to get a medical bill. That's how it was before there was health insurance.

Today, however, we have created a bunch of spoiled people who think they can go to the hospital for every little bug or cut because they are told they are entitled to it.

I remember my dad telling me I needed to get a job when I was 16 because it was my responsibility to support myself. He didn't tell me that if I sat around all day he'd support me and give me a free paycheck. But that's the attitude the government creates when it gives citizens something for nothing.

We are told every day that we are going to get cancer if we sit in the sun. We are told we will die of a car accident if we drive too fast. We are told we will get sick if we are exposed to too many germs. And we encourage people to get checked up for every little bump.

I'm not saying we shouldn't take care of our bodies and come to the ER if we are having crushing chest pain. I'm saying people need to be told, as my father told me, that you don't need to cry like a baby every time you fall off the couch.

Yet, by creating a Health Care system that makes it so the person who is sick will not get a bill, we are encouraging people to cry and piss and moan and see an ER doctor instead of being responsible and making a wise decision regarding their health and finances.

And it is for this very reason that the cost of medicine is going up. The cost of medicine is not going up because prescription drugs cost so much, because new drugs have always been expensive.

The cost of healthcare actually was relatively low until 40 years ago when the government decided to get involved in healthcare. Since that time, the cost of medicine has done nothing but increase.

So, add more government healthcare, and the cost will go up even more. And, with more people flocking to already overcrowded ERs, we may have a true medical crisis on our hands.

2 comments:

Mr. Biceps Workout said...

Ok, a few things to point out here. If government involvement in health care is so bad and expensive, why do the other civilized nations that have universal health care pay a lot less than the united states (about half as much in almost all cases on a per capita basis http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Publications/Fund-Reports/2007/May/Mirror--Mirror-on-the-Wall--An-International-Update-on-the-Comparative-Performance-of-American-Healt.aspx)? Although I don't neccessarily think that you need government run health care to fix the problem, I do think you need A LOT of health care reform, and I think the entity that is best suited for this is the government. Basically, under your current system, a doctor gets paid for each patient he/she sees, each test he/she prescribes, and the treatments handed out. Furthermore, lawsuits in the US for malpractise tend to be huge and very expensive. So this means that each doctor has a huge incentive to see as many patients as he/she can, and prescribe as many tests and treatments as possible, both to make money and reduce the chances of getting sued for missing something. Add to that the fact that many in the US are making poor lifestyle choices, and that there seems to be more of an emphasis on treatment than prevention (which has been shown to be a lot cheaper to implement and is a lot more cost effective - since it costs little to give a vaccine, teach hygiene, and excercise and eat properly, and it costs a lot to treat diabetes, lung, cancer, heart disease, or even a case of malaria). Finally, I completely don't understand how this public health care would be as complicated as the republicans make it out to be. You just have to be registered, and go to the doctor. The doctor would know what is and isn't covered, and could act accordingly. Its privatized healthcare that seems more complicated and costly, as insurance companies want to make money, and will often do as much as possible to pay out as little as they can, making it much more complicated in some cases, and more costly to the system.

Rick Frea said...

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