Letters to the Editor
droogoy
Published Letters: 608 Editor's Choice: 9
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Corrupt people
[Read the article: "Sicko"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]curmudgeon 2 wrote:
The people are corrupt. I am a senior citizen on Medicare and most of the people I know take no responsibility for their own health, and as I said before are almost gleeful when their Doc prescribes expensive treatments.
SO - in what criminal enclave do you live where there are so many "corrupt" geezers? I have lived in FOUR in the U.S. (from FL to MD, to AK and CO) and I've found none of the "corruption" of which you speak.
In general, the folks I have seen have been torn between taking vital meds and eating, or having fuel for winters.
Oh, and a LOT of those folks did everything right with their diet but still had sky high cholesterol. Know why? Because what you eat is only a small part of the equation, other factors are also at work including genetics.
Another case, a 70 yr. old I know has an aerobic lifestyle to kill for - walks 5 km a day. Eats frugally, no animal fats, ice cream. Still she had to have treatment for borderline diabetes. Know why? She had substituted too many fruits for the meats etc. and this sent her blod sugar sky high. She thought she was doing the right thing, but didn't work out that way.
My point here is that things are seldom so simplistic as you make them out to be and people just 'taking proper care of themselves'.
While we're on the topic, when a lot of older folks hit 65 they are saddled with health problems because they couldn't afford the insurance during their working years and employers didn't provide it. As a result, the problems just piled up.
It is also not a clear cut issue to say who can "afford" it and who can't. Since for just a single person over 50 the cheapest insurance is some $350 a month- that runs to a LOT of money if one is earning $35,000 a year or less. Even a middle income earner ($55,000 - 75,000) will see hell if he or she is unfortunate enough to get in a serious accident. (Such as one near me a year ago where a guy was changing his tire off the roadway and was sideswiped by an SUV)
Yes, we need universal health care and yes it will have to be paid for by taxes. I have also proposed to jump start this dynamic by repealing all the Bush tax cuts from 2001 - thereby saving an estimated $1.2 trillion after 2008 when most of them will kick in.
As for Big Pharma and so on, the only reason they have as big a voice as they do is because laws full of loopholes allow them to intrude into the political arena and commit graft - by selling their campaign donations as bribes to the highest bidders.
Meanwhile, a little country like Barbados (which also, btw, is the oldest parliamentary democracy in the hemisphere) has iron clad laws which punish even a first offense of political donations (by a corporation) with ten years at hard labor for each CEO, and a million dollar fine per offense.
As I said before, it is a matter of WILL. SO far, the U.S. has not demonstrated the will that it is more for the citizens than the big business parasites that prey on them. Maybe enough enraged citizens can change that.
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The commonality
[Read the article: "Sicko"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"The sure sign of a corrupt proposal is when there is a requirement for universal coverage, i.e., no one can avoid being in it. Most of us have no need for a single-payer system, because most of us are healthy"
Health is relative, and in most cases temporay One never knows when one will need serious attention. You can be simply walking your smug, self-congratulating, healthy way down a street when - WHAM! - an out of control driver jumps the curb and smacks into your sorry ass. What then?
Oh sure, you can probably afford the care. But many others cannot. 85% of the American work force are actually only one major health catastophe from being financially wiped out. This should not be.
What you call a "corrupt proposal" of (currently) healthy 'Peters' paying for sick 'Pauls' is really the basis of a commonality - where we are all in this together and the stronger (and more well off) help the sicker, and less well off. THIS is what we call a compassionate society.
Universal care works precisely because the risk is shared over a vast population, rather than focused on a limited, more sickly one. It is the fair way to provide care for the most people at the most reasonable cost. Again, one never knows exactly when the time will come for major health needs, say after a catastrophic accident.
As Adam Smith himself noted in his 'Wealth of Nations' there are needs in civilized society that are not met (or met minimallly) in "barbaric" ones.
The choice before us now is to go forward as a civilized and humane society, or to revert more to the barbaric one that you seem to advocate.