Thanks, but no thanks By DAN DeWALT - Brattleboro Reformer Published: Mar 13, 2014, 3:00 Updated: Mar 12, 2014, 20:36 When the enrollment deadline for the Affordable Care Act rolls around, I will be one of the millions of Americans who hasnt signed up. If it were entitled the Affordable Insurance Act it would at least bear an honest name. And as laudable as it may be to make health insurance more affordable, it has very little to do with health care. The health insurance industry sucks billions of health care dollars from Americans without providing a single service that is health restorative in any sense. If anything, insurance costs, hassles and inadequacies should only be seen as exacerbating factors in dealing with problems of bad health. These billions of dollars, if not being used to generate profits as well as administering parameters and limits to health care, could be available to pay for the care itself. Some of it could stay in our pockets. People claim that this arcane insurance gateway to health care system stems from our mistrust in government and our love for free enterprise. No matter that in one industrialized country after another, single-payer health care systems are successfully taking care of peoples health at a much lower cost than we pay in America. Our history is a free-for-all of healers of all stripes advertising their cures. While medical practices have ranged wildly over the spectrum, they shared one common quality: whether a quack or a surgeon, medical practitioners have mostly operated for profit. As a result, many a poor American has perished from not being able to afford medical treatment. Instead of stepping in as a polis and understanding that a healthy life for everyone is necessary for a nation to thrive, we allowed the free enterprise system to intrude instead, creating a for-profit labyrinth of bureaucracies that served a majority of the public (good enough for private contractor work), while leaving a large minority without adequate access to health care. Even if the subsidies in the ACA offered me a chance to enroll relatively cheaply, I wouldnt do so any more than I would spend medium amounts of money on anything that I didnt like or didnt believe in.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 12:26:28 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015