Reflections on Health Care

Today in APUSG, my teacher, Mr. Adamak, went on a thought-provoking rant. It was on the topic of health care, for the most part, and dealt with the wrongness of those who profiteer off of the sick and ill in this country.

This was met with disgust by a number of members of the class, who felt that it was necessary to make money, mostly in the name of capitalism. "Doctors need to make money, too!" was just one of the protests later held. This is beside the point. The point isn't that doctors and all variety of health care workers not make as much money as they do now, the problem is at the top of these organizations, where helping people has been shoved aside as a priority and the making of a profit the first. The number one goal of health care today is not to make people feel better or help them stay healthy, it is to make as much money as possible on those who are ill and dying.

Another outcry said that "Don't restaurants have a right to make money because people are hungry?" Once again, yes they do, but health care and restaurants are significantly different. Eating at a restaurant is a luxury; people who can't afford to do it simply don't, and there are alternatives, the grocery store, for one. People do not choose to get hurt. Would those who compare health care to restaurants have these injured and uninsured people put a homemade splint or cast on. People do not choose to get hurt, it is simply a fact of life that must be dealt with, and for someone to not be able to afford a fact of life is simply wrong.

What really (pardon the expression) grinds my gears though, is the people who would refuse health care reform because they want to keep their doctor, or because the money could be put to better use overseas. How could a good-hearted human being stand in the way of helping thousands upon thousands of people avoid debt, get insured, and stay healthy simply because they like their doctor. It is simply disgusting that a human being could allow his fellow man to suffer simply because he/she doesn't want to switch doctors. Not to mention the fact that the overwhelming majority of people won't have to switch doctors if this much needed health care reform is passed.

One of my classmates went so far as to say that "happiness isn't a right, the pursuing it is" in regards to health care. This may be true in a literal fashion, but if we start to consider healthy a synonym with happy, it no longer applies. To say that people do not have a right to health care in our civilized society is simply and plainly barbaric. I wish upon all people who stand in the way of insuring the thousands of people that so desperately need it that someday, if just for a day, they can experience the hardship of being injured or ill and not knowing how to pay for it. I thorougly believe that if they, no, if everyone, experienced this, there would be nothing standing in the way of health care reform.

The only thing preventing health care reform is greed at all levels, the desire for money and a maintainance of the status quo, and it is truly sad. I do not have the answers, but the simple fact is that we need to look for them. We know the problems, now we have to find a way to bypass the greed that is preventing the solutions. I apoligize for my rambling, thanks for reading.

Mike Olson