Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of… Health Care?
I live in the only conservative and Republican leaning borough in all of New York City. I am also a “bleeding heart liberal” to quote one of my teachers. Yesterday when health care reform finally passed my family and I were watching CSPAN and clapping—while I read the status updates of my classmates on Facebook, bemoaning the ruination of America with the passage of health care for babies and sick people.
I am astonished at the mercilessness people feel towards those less fortunate than them. The people I go to school with, people I have at least a neutral or even positive opinion of, think health care for the underprivileged is a bad thing. I don’t believe people understand that even when people don’t have health care, someone is still paying for it. Whether it is the government giving stipends to large healthcare firms to pay for the uninsured or physicians offering uncompensated care, the uninsured will be given service. And even ignoring the fiscal repercussions of having about 47 million American insured, considering that babies and young children are denied health and dental care in a country where movies can make billions of dollars and dogs are carried in designer bags, is a nauseating thought.
As well, it bothers me that many people don’t even know what is in the bill yet are vehemently against it. Many still believe that health care reform is a Marxist, socialist, or communist plot. This tight held belief of many conservatives and those that refuse to listen to or read the news is false. Without a Public Option or the implementation of the Single Payer System, there still isn’t universal health care or a socialist scheme to ruin our government, about 95% of Americans will be covered with the plan. I understand being politically against this bill, I’m willing to have intelligent conversations over reform. However, I cannot understand those that just “don’t like it” and cite nonfactual information spewed from the likes of Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh.
Right now my faith in America is greater than ever. A promise made by the president that began my true interest in politics is finally coming to fruition. No, this bill may not be perfect for me but it’s a start towards a healthy America—the kind of America where all citizens can prosper as the Declaration of Independence intended.
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I’m Claire and I approve of this article.
A most definitively strong piece.
When this bill passed, many people applauded it but then a second after asked, “Wait, what does it do?” But for those that do know and are disappointed, but this gives others hope. Not for the effects of the bill but many are seeing that Obama is keeping promises. Slowly but surely.