I watched Sicko 2 nights ago and I was thinking about social health-care. I have been thinking about social health-care for a long time now and really don’t understand why the United States refuses to help its people in this way.
In Belgium their taxes are about 50% of their income if they make about 30,000 Euros a year. That’s like what 50,00 Dollars? Could you imagine the outrage if an American had to pay 50% of their income to help other people. Danielle’s friend Stefan is educated and studying law, so I may not have had the average perspective of a Belgian person, but it seem’s like a lot of people there are educated too. Is this because university is basically free for them?
I do want to mention that they have a lot of issues with the country and their French and Flemish sections. According to this guy , and I am pretty sure he knows what’s up, because they pay so much taxes, and the French section is poorer, people don’t work because welfare makes more money than a minimum wage job. So, I wanted to give you that perspective too.
Anyway, that is still ok. In the movie they went to France, Canada, and even Cuba, and went into hospitals to see how things worked. Obviously Michael Moore picked nice hospitals to represent what their health care system is like, but clearly the health system is working because all of those countries have a higher life expectancy than our own.
Doctors actually get paid based on how well they do for their patients. If they get people to stop smoking they get paid more. The guy actually said that if you live in England you can make about 200-400 Dollars a year and live comfortably, but if you want to live getting paid 500-1 mill a year, then no, you have to live in America.
We really need that much money? That is so incredibly capitalistic and horrible. The question is; are we that selfish that we need to make so much money when other people are dying of health issues? I think about how lucky my dad was to have all the support he did. He had his own money and had a business that he sold to help pay for his treatment. But, if my dad were to have lived longer he probably would have gone through that money much quicker. Yes, the insurance helped, but if you have insurance and you have no money you cannot afford to pay for health-care. When my brother got cancer, yes, the whole family has had it, lucky lucky, my parents struggled to pay deductibles. That’s not even the hardest part. When a person is sick, and just cough cough sick, you don’t want to do anything, and if you have a fatal disease you definitely do not want to spend your last year , 2 years, or whatever dealing with money and insurance companies.
Why do we have to fight to get what we are supposed to have as citizens. Our first right is life. How can we have life, all have life, with no social health-care. So, what if we have to pay taxes? Someone else does not have the same luxury that we do and why? Why are they poorer, why are they struggling? Could it be our fault too? Obviously it is from years of racial and economic oppression. Is it fair to say that because a long time ago we oppressed you now you can’t have proper health-care. Yes, I understand a need for capitolism and for the drive to make money. This will help us try and work. I am not even getting into more socialistic issues like welfare, that’s another discussion.
No, I am trying to say that the fact that we don’t take care of the people who are struggling for life, simply life, is wrong. If I got cancer right now, or got hit by a car, or someone else stabbed me in the stomach, I’d like to be concerned about if my insides are gonna fall out, rather than if the hospital I go to takes my insurance card. It was amazing in the film to see that going to a hospital is financially painless. They walk in and out, and if you are sick you are not rushed out in the same way by an insurance company not wanting to pay for your hospital bed.
It is disgusting that we don’t have social health-care in our country. What the hell is wrong with us. I promise if we have social health care the communists wont take over. I’ll be back to this issue. I need to educate myself more about it.
1…. 2…..3…..let’s do it.
