Question: What is your health care situation? Are you covered? Or uninsured? Where do you live? What is your experience (good, bad, both) with your health care? What would you change about health care if you could?
I'm thinking I ought to send some suggestions to my state's two senators in Washington... the bill is going to them next.
The health care reform bill made it through the
House of Representatives. No Republican support except for this one legislator from New Orleans, and even some opposition from conservative Democrats. Doesn't surprise me; the Republicans tend to set themselves up as the party of
What We Are Not, and part of
What We Are Not is 1.) lower socioeconomic status (too "poor" to simply buy whatever health care one needs) 2.) young (all the elderly are entitled to free Medicare, but by god, some of them don't wanna share it with us whippersnappers, although they're perfectly happy to leave us the bill, and yes, Medicare is deducted automatically out of everyone's check) and 3.) nonwhite (many whites can't afford good healthcare either, but it really hurts minority groups disproportionally) and 4.) small business (I've always worked for small businesses here, and they don't have the bargaining power of big business for good healthcare discounts. So yours truly has never gotten any help from her employer to pay for health insurance.)
My father is self-employed (my mom keeps the books for him), so he's pretty much screwed if something major happened to the family (I think he has disability, though). My mother's mother had diabetes, and my mom is on meds for high blood pressure and has to avoid salt and such. She exercises and tries to eat right, but she's dealing with post-menopause too so that makes it difficult for her to lose weight. BlueCross rejected her for insurance. Basically, a health insurance company would rather accept a person with a history of heart attacks than diabetes, or at risk for diabetes, 'cause a heart attack might just kill you outright, whereas with diabetes you are unlikely to die that quickly, so you will need lots of care. And that's the goal of health insurance: to turn a profit, not take care of people who might actually need it.
This is bad, considering how many Americans have or are at risk for diabetes. I guess the Republicans just want them all to die or suffer if they can't afford care / can't get insured / or declare bankruptcy? (Half of banruptcies are due to medical bills.)
Right now I'm uninsured. I was insured the last time I was in the states, and I had InterGlobal while in Japan. I'm young, female, and overall quite healthy, and I paid BlueCross $130 / month for their "BlueSaver" plan (that is, basically just "if something bad like cancer happens, we'll help after your super-high deductible is paid.") No routine check-ups, no eye care, no dental. That was all I could afford. Now that I am a waitress, my income depends on tips from customers: it's highly variable.
And with the economy sucking, people are really cutting back on eating out. All the restaurants in town are suffering. And there isn't a restaurant I know of that offers any benefits to its employees. Every now and then I get into a discussion about this with customers or friends, and some of them basically seem to think that: "If you want insurance, get a better job." Which is really... not fair. Even in white collar industries, young people are attractive to companies in part because they can often hire us for lower salaries, without benefits, and we don't really have much bargaining power.
I guess I'm just disillusioned. When I was young, I believed if you worked hard, you could take care of yourself and your family, especially if you worked hard at your education. This is proving to not necessarily be true. It's more like: "if you have the right connections, if you were born with a certain amount of privilege, if you get into the right field, then you have a better chance of success, but even then, watch out."
I caught a cold yesterday too. My throat is swollen. :sulks:
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