Health Care

I believe Health is a right not a commodity and everyone should have access to health.

Now that that is out of the way, I love my Health Policy and Management class, which is interesting because it was the class I was the least excited about.

But what better time to take the class than now. It is extremely relevant to what's going on in the news. Health care is being debated and discussed in townhall meetings across the nation until people are blue in the face. It's the Republicans against the Democrats, House against the Senate, People against the State! In all the commotion, it's nice to be taking a class that will inform me about what the eff is going on.

Here's my brief sociological analysis on why we are the richest and most powerful nation in the country, yet compared to other industrialized nations, we have higher infant mortality rates, lower life expectancies, and overall, unhealthier people. Okay, I didn't come up with this, but it makes a lot of sense.

Historically, we've been anti-government and pro-capitalism. It's literally in our roots. After slaughtering all the Indians, immigrants from England came here to escape from their imposing governments. The founding fathers of our country put a crapload of "checks-and-balanced" in the Constitution so the government won't go out of control. While other countries were calling their rulers Kings and Queens, we addressed our "ruler" as "Mr. President." We championed free trade. We pushed for free markets. We believed that letting everyone share their wares will equalize costs, destroy monopolies, and weed out the weak. Down with Communism! Screw Socialism!
The line between Church and State blurs sometimes, but between the State and the Economy, the line as thick as Montana.

I'm not going to get into economics because that's really not the point of this entry and, to tell you the truth, I don't know much about it. But I know this much. Health is NOT economics.

Health services should not be sold or traded like dental floss or strippers. These are people's lives we are dealing with, their livelihood. When people are looking to just make a profit off of your sickness or well-being, people who need the help don't get it.
Because here's how it works. Private insurance companies do not want to cover people who are terminally sick. It's costly. There are pills to buy, tests to run, physicians to pay...sick people are expensive. And insurance companies want to profit, just like every other business in the economy.
So they refuse insurance to the sick and insure people who are healthy. In fact, sometimes people are at risk of losing their insurance if they become terminally sick.

Our professor was telling us how some insurance companies would hold dance parties on the third floor walkup at a senior home. The senior citizens who are able to make that 3 floor trek up the stairs are greeted with food, music, dance, and access to care. The ones unable to get out of bed, the sickest people in the ward, don't get coverage. This is called "cherry-picking." The insurances "cherry-picks" the healthiest, and therefore, the least expensive people to cover.

I laughed when I heard this. A tragic wow-that-is-the-most-fucked-up-thing-I've-heard-in-a-while laugh.

I don't expect us to switch to universal health care anytime soon. I don't expect that a bill is going to be drafted that is going to make everything hunky-dory for everyone. In fact, I'm pretty sure that health care is going to be a vein-popping, voice-rising, eye bulging, and fist-shaking topic when I qualify for Medicare, some 45 years from now.

But something needs to change. People need to see that Health care is not a commodity, that it doesn't make sense as a commodity, and people on a whole are not benefiting this way. Deem it socialist if you want, condemn me for my communist views if you wish, but everyone should have access to health care. And the government is the only entity that can insure that. Period.