The term "Socialism" has become the taboo word of our day, with complete disregard as to when it might actually be an appropriate tool to fix certain problems. Fundamentally, Socialism is how any kind of insurance works - the risk is spread out, everyone pays in to a "pool" - aka the insurance company - and then you receive a payout when you get into a car accident, a hail storm damages your roof, or you get sick or need surgery, etc. Golly, if I didn't have to buy health insurance, car insurance, homeowner's insurance, and life insurance, I could probably put all the money I'd save into an account and I'd have more than enough to pay for my new roof, new bumper, or doctor's visit. But maybe I wouldn't. Like driving without insurance, the stakes are high - once serious accident could spell financial ruin. That is not a risk I am willing to take for me or for my family, so I keep on paying those premiums.
The truth is, we already HAVE a socialized health care system. If you have a routine outpatient surgery and get a bill for $10,000, your bill is so high because you have to pay the hospital enough to make up for all of the other patients who don't have insurance or Medicaid or sometimes aren't even legal residents of the US. Anyone who needs health care can walk into any hospital and get treatment by law, regardless of their ability to pay the bill. Women have figured out that if they come to our hospital in stage 2 labor, they don't get sent to Parkland, they get to deliver in our nice hospital. They know it and they tell their friends. They aren't concerned about getting a bill they can't pay, because they have zero assets and don't care about their credit rating since they live on cash paycheck to paycheck. Yet a friend of mine, who is going through a divorce, not yet working, and only has a house and a car, can't go to the doctor even though her arm is giving her so much pain that she can't sleep at night. Why? Because she's an upstanding citizen, doesn't want her credit ruined, knows she can't pay the bill, but can't qualify for Medicaid because she has assets. You can't pay for a doctor's visit with your house and car. While it's true that there are people who abuse the system, it is also true that there are many people for whom the system should be helping get back on their feet. There needs to be some way for an upstanding person who wants to help themselves to do so. The whole system of not qualifying for help unless you're penniless and jobless doesn't do anything to help people who are trying to work, trying to pay their bills, and trying to improve their situation.
A disabled person who is able to do a minimum-wage job saves the system thousands of dollars in their lifetime - many thousands more than it took to provide them with job training and coaching to make them employable in the first place. That person then becomes a sustainable taxpayer, not living off assistance, etc. OK, what if my son Ryan is one day able to be a grocery sacker or a towel-folder, and earns minimum wage? My fondest dream for his future is for him to maximize his abilities and be the most that he can be, and a minimum-wage job would be an incredible goal to work towards for him, given the scope of his disability. But, at minimum wage and with the nature of his disability, he would not be able to live on his own by a long shot. But having an income, no matter how small, means that he won't qualify for HCS, Medicaid, SSI or anything else, and he may well not get health insurance at his minimum-wage job either. Am I actually supposed to hold Ryan back and put him in a sheltered workshop, when he could have been doing a productive job, just so that he won't have to live at home with Jay and I supporting him for the rest of his life and then end up in a state school after we're gone? Holding him back and putting him in a group residence and sheltered workshop is no panacea, either. Our special needs financial planner tells us that parents whose adult children go this route still don't collect enough in government benefits to have any quality of life. If we want Ryan to have clothes, snacks, outings, a CD or a movie, etc, we will wind up contributing an average of $1000 per month to his living expenses. Even if we could afford that during our working years, what about during our retirement years? And who will provide that after we’re gone?
This is shameful that these are his (and our) 2 choices.
I have heard the argument that we should leave the health care system alone because if everyone were suddenly to have the right to health care, doctors’ offices would be inundated and there would be long waits! Hmmm...do ya think? Maybe we should stop saving premature babies because all they do is require months and years of care; that would free up some doctors. Maybe we should stop treating cancer patients too...hey, in addition to freeing up some more doctors, that would help reduce the population problem. Maybe we should just get rid of all people with disabilities or pre-existing medical conditions while we're at it - then the medical system would really be cleared out. It would save us a lot of money!
What I find to be incredibly ironic is that the Republican Party is against abortion, yet also against health care for all. Why is it wrong to kill an unborn baby yet acceptable to deny health care to babies, children and adults of all ages? Do fetuses have more civil rights than people? The people who are suffering with our current system AREN'T the deadbeats that everyone can agree need to go away and be sterilized. Ironically, with our current system, those people actually qualify for assistance. The people who are suffering are the people who want to work, have jobs, pay their bills, care about their credit rating, but don't have insurance and don't want to lose what they do have in order to qualify for assistance. The people being marginalized by our current Socialist Healthcare System are the ones we ought to be helping, in my opinion.
And some quotes from the sign in front of our church:
"Jesus would have been in favor of healthcare for all."
"Healthcare is a civil right."
