Friday, April 16, 2010

Health Care

I know this is a sensitive subject now for most of the United States. But after all this is my blog in my little world and I couldn't keep quiet any longer...keep in mind I can't post this on FaceBook because my house would be bombed, but oh well.

Let's start off by saying that my health care sucks. Even though I work for an extremely large company (I just received an email that stated that Verizon buys health care for 900,000 people), I pay a lot out of each check and pay a lot *to me* out of pocket.

Here's some numbers to ponder. It cost me in total almost $5,000 to have Austin. $250 dollars just for the blood work to tell my doctor that I WAS in fact pregnant, even though I didn't go to the doctor until I was 3 months pregnant so at this point I think it was pretty obvious. I had a completely natural birth and only took several iron pills and roughly 4 ibuprofen at the hospital, so why did I receive a bill for so much? I'll tell you why, because a lot of people don't have health care and need it...so my charge helps pay for them too. It's expensive to be a doctor or a nurse, heaven forbid a hospital so I understand the charges.

When I am confronted with certain issues I know to go to my Pooba for answers....Chris Rock can you help me out with this? And yes he did. He summed it up better than I could.

While being interviewed on Bill Maher he stated that all the health care bill is the same situation you get when you are flying in a plane in first class. You don't want to know that the guy next to you received a "free upgrade" when you paid $2,000 for your seat. He considers health care until recently an elitist status showing for those that could afford it. He went into further detail about the fact that his Dad got sick when Chris was 22 and poor, his dad's illness was not that severe but 50 days later he died. His Mom got sick a few years back now that he's rich and while her illness was MUCH more severe she is alive and well. When he went to visit her in the hospital he was shocked to find that she had a concierge service, was this a hospital or a hotel? He explained that if the general public knew the discrepancy between the health care of the rich and poor there would riots in the streets but instead it's very easy to hold on to your own health care and not want others to enjoy your first class entitlement.

I understand some of the arguments but not all. One major one that stands out is the argument that by allowing health care to be moderated by the government we are one step closer to the socialism. I am not sure when socialism became such a horrific idea anyways but now that it is, let me just say that our mail, schools and transportation systems are all controlled by the government but no one was shouting from the roof tops about those, in fact we - as generalized society - are extremely angry when they cut school GOVERNMENT funding. So the argument is to start up these privatized charter schools. Hmmmm, I used to be all for the charter schools until I researched them just a bit further. Do you know that ALL charter schools in Colorado Springs do not have special education programs...after all they are too expensive. Two things to think about there....1.) Autism affects 1 out of 150 kids and 2.) My brother was in special education, while his IQ has been measured well above my own, he couldn't say the letter "R" due to a speech impediment he developed while having ear infections as a kid. Tadd speaks completely normal now thanks to the government run, socialized special education programs at Woodland Park elementary school. I am sure he thanks you.

1 comment:

LauraSuz said...

Anne and I were talking about all your latest fun posts and saying how good you are at stating your opinion. It's subtle but stated nonetheless. Even though I've known you for about 3 years now it's nice to get to know you even more through your writing.

Oh, and I still want to see picture of my beautiful niece. :)