Society needs healthcare wake up call
By Bill Kostkas
Issue date: 11/13/09 Section: Opinion
This past week, President Barack Obama imposed yet another deadline to enact healthcare reform by the end of the year.
If you ask me, this feels like it's about the 17th deadline set by a Democratic politician since serious talk of reform began back in June. Healthcare is a political issue that has been argued about for years, going back even before some of us were born.
It's also one that I believe we'll never be able to perfect. Therein lays the main problem with the entire mess that I refer to as healthcare reform.
Last Saturday, the House voted 220-215 to approve the Affordable Health Care for America Act, just a small step in the long journey to enacting reform for good.
According to CNN, 39 Democrats voted against the bill and only one Republican voted in favor.
This is a bill that, according to nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, would provide coverage to about 96 percent of Americans and restrict insurance companies from denying or raising premiums based on pre-existing conditions, gender or age. The "affordable" part of this bill is what's laughable to me, not just Sen. Harry Reid's rebuttal to the President's deadline, saying he was very skeptical about it being passed by then.
As I scoured through the President's healthcare plan on www.whitehouse.gov, nowhere could I find a total amount of what this bill might actually cost in the long run.
That's probably because it isn't affordable for this country as a whole at all, and they're telling us exactly what any politician would: what they don't want us to know.
According to CNN, this bill will cost around $1.2 trillion.
Golly gee, doesn't this sound much like what former president George W. Bush would do? I thought government spending was a huge problem? That's all we heard during the campaign last year.
One thing I've heard from people who support a public option is that everything was going to be cheap, free and easy.
It'll be far from that, as a matter of fact. We pay for our healthcare now. Those in countries such as Canada and Great Britain also pay.
If you ask me, this feels like it's about the 17th deadline set by a Democratic politician since serious talk of reform began back in June. Healthcare is a political issue that has been argued about for years, going back even before some of us were born.
It's also one that I believe we'll never be able to perfect. Therein lays the main problem with the entire mess that I refer to as healthcare reform.
Last Saturday, the House voted 220-215 to approve the Affordable Health Care for America Act, just a small step in the long journey to enacting reform for good.
According to CNN, 39 Democrats voted against the bill and only one Republican voted in favor.
This is a bill that, according to nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, would provide coverage to about 96 percent of Americans and restrict insurance companies from denying or raising premiums based on pre-existing conditions, gender or age. The "affordable" part of this bill is what's laughable to me, not just Sen. Harry Reid's rebuttal to the President's deadline, saying he was very skeptical about it being passed by then.
As I scoured through the President's healthcare plan on www.whitehouse.gov, nowhere could I find a total amount of what this bill might actually cost in the long run.
That's probably because it isn't affordable for this country as a whole at all, and they're telling us exactly what any politician would: what they don't want us to know.
According to CNN, this bill will cost around $1.2 trillion.
Golly gee, doesn't this sound much like what former president George W. Bush would do? I thought government spending was a huge problem? That's all we heard during the campaign last year.
One thing I've heard from people who support a public option is that everything was going to be cheap, free and easy.
It'll be far from that, as a matter of fact. We pay for our healthcare now. Those in countries such as Canada and Great Britain also pay.
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Viewing Comments 1 - 4 of 4
Lindsey
posted 11/12/09 @ 10:08 PM EST
The US spends 16% on health care while still leaving at least 15% of its citizens uninsured. Every single other industrialized nation in the world has universal health care, and all of these countries spend less than the United States. (Continued…)
Daniel Adewumi
posted 11/13/09 @ 1:41 AM EST
This article did not go straight to the point, in fact it serve no purpose reading it at all becuase it get one confused about the intention of the writer. (Continued…)
dr. d
dr. d
posted 11/13/09 @ 10:19 AM EST
As a former underwriter for a major insurance company, I can tell you that there is nothing ethical left to preserve in the current system. Insurance companies exist for one reason: to make money and deny care. (Continued…)
Bcestrone
Brandon Cestrone
posted 11/30/09 @ 9:02 PM EST
The writer is wrong....WW2 did NOT get us out of the Great Depression..It ended after the war... after the war, taxes were cut by one third, spending was cut by two thirds. (Continued…)
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