Political analysis
De-Privatizing Socialized Health Care
- By Chronically Pissed
- October 24, 2007
Want to hear a dirty little secret that the insurance industry doesn’t want you to know? Here it is…
The United States health care system is already socialized! Think about it. We’ve largely decided, as a society, that it makes sense to pool our resources for the common good where health is concerned. Everyone (with the exception of the uninsured) pays X amount of dollars per year into a communal account which is then used to pay for large medical expenses when participating individuals are sick or hurt. That is socialism! Insurance IS socialism. The only difference is that we’ve let a monster take over the administration of this system, for which we pay its CEO’s, employees, and shareholders BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS OF DOLLARS. Check out my very complicated, meticulously rendered illustration:
Yes, I drew that myself. No, it’s not to scale.
Let me set one thing straight. I don’t want free health care. I’m not looking for a government handout. I simply want to pay into a system that does not let a bunch of rich, white fucks run off with the lions share of whatever I’ve paid to insure my family against financial ruin due to medical expenses. I don’t mind subsidizing those who are sicker than I am. I don’t care if I pay into the system without needing to file a claim for 20 straight years. I just want to pay my share (preferably on a sliding scale, based on income) what’s needed to provide for the healthcare of everyone in the pool and not a red fucking cent more. If there’s money leftover at the end of the year, roll it over into next year for me. Hell, give it to charity. Just don’t give it to a bunch of fat cats who are getting fatter off the tears of the sick.
The most common argument I hear against universal or “socialized” healthcare is “They’ll have to pay for it somehow,” by which the brainwashed speaker means “They’re going to raise my taxes!” This argument assumes that the government will need more money to pay for universal healthcare than we already hemorrhage into insurance industry coffers. But if you look at my very simple diagram up there, you’ll see that the insurance industry is able to pay our doctors bills, pay their own administrative costs (including massive CEO compensation packages) AND run off with BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS OF DOLLARS in profit.
I’m not a mathematician, but my calculations tell met that if you were to eliminate the middle man, we – the consumers – would be able to hold onto those BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, resulting in something that a clever person might call a HUGE TAX CUT. (A less clever person might not be able to stop manically salivating about no new taxes, NO NEW TAXES, NO NEW TAXES!)
I am married, with one child. My wife lost her union health insurance shortly after our son was born. We faced a choice as a family: Pay upwards of $7500/year for comprehensive health insurance or pay $2400 by accepting a higher deductible and hope we didn’t spend more than $5100 on medical expenses. (Naturally, there were gradations in between, but this is basically what the decision looked like to us.) Being young and healthy, we chose the more affordable plan. People tend to think of that as gambling with our health and finances, but what about the gamble involved in pissing away that additional $5100 (much of which would end up in corporate pockets) on coverage we probably wouldn’t need to take advantage of?
Needless to say, I’ve ended up needing $5000 worth of dental work and my son has been diagnosed with a wandering eye that needs surgery. This will set us back at least another $5000. 50% of patients with my son’s condition need additional surgeries. Our deductible resets on January 1, 2008, which has forced us to consider delaying his surgery (against the advice of our opthamologist) in order to avoid losing $5000 in November and another $5000 in January, before the insurance company pays a dime.
Anti-“socialized medicine” fanatics can quibble, (as they’ve done with the Wilkersons and the Frosts), over who can and who can’t afford private health insurance, but it doesn’t matter whether my family earns $40,000 or $120,000 per year. It doesn’t matter whether comprehensive health insurance would cost us $7,500 or $12,000 per year. It doesn’t matter whether we need file a claim for $1 or $1,000,000. It doesn’t matter because health care has already been socialized – privately socialized – by people who are pushing the costs higher and higher, at the expense of hardworking Americans who don’t think our salaries should be drastically reduced by these exorbitant costs while the insurance industry continues to post ever-larger profits.
It’s time to de-privatize socialized medicine.
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I’d like to know where in the constitution it says anything about the Federal government having the authority to take money from one class and give to another for Health care?
Is having Health care an inalienable right now? Let wtates bare this burden. Don’t get me wrong, i hate the idea that children in particular might not have Health care. However, i also hate it when i see people make stupid financial choices in their lives and then expect others to pay for it. How many socio-economic studies have to come out proving that the “poor” in this country are not exactly what most people think of as being poor (owning homes, cars, multiple tvs ertc). Certainly there are real scenarios where families need legitimate help with these issues.
I propose that if we reduce the size of the Federal gov’t and have our stolen money returned to us that more people would work at the community level to solve these problems.
389 days ago by Maynard