I just watched Michael Moore's documentary "Sicko" for the second time. With a husband about to join the ranks of MD, I wanted to get another perspective on American healthcare.
Before I saw this, I was familiar with insurance issues and bureaucracy of medical care. I know firsthand the corrupt, avaricious politics employed by insurance companies to save their bottom line and screw the rest of us.
But I wanted to see the multi-faceted opinions on this subject before I made my decision.
I have talked to rich people, poor people, doctors, watched propaganda (for both sides), argued with my stepdad and husband, and relived my own experiences in trying to figure out exactly where I have been brainwashed and where the grains of truth have landed.
Here is what I've determined:
First, we are lied to from the moment we are born. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny; your braces look great, glasses are flattering with your bone structure; he wanted to call but he had to take his mom to the hairdressers; etc. These lies are not only perpetuated by our parents, but also by our government. I was told that Rush Limbaugh is a genius, for example. My ultra-conservative stepdad fed me other inaccuracies during my adolescence and when I tried to contradict him, I was punished. A liberal classmate tried to convince our Public Speaking class that partial-birth abortion is not murder. My government told me that we are spending billions of dollars in Iraq for my benefit--I have yet to see the benefit. Meanwhile, my country is deep recession and my neighbors are losing their house.
I am told that socialized medicine is evil, Communist, and corrupt--but insurance CEOs and pharmaceutical company CEOs are among the highest paid individuals in our country while middle- and lower-class people are dying from lack of adequate healthcare and medicine.
Michael Moore has poisoned your view, you say. You have been brainwashed and are easily swayed, you admonish. Hmmm... maybe. But maybe, just maybe, he isnt the evil, -gasp- liberal, socialist my stepfather/Rush Limbaugh says he is. Maybe Moore has a point. Anyone who is quick to point fingers usually hasnt lived in a country where national healthcare is available. I did.
My mom, step dad at the time, and I moved to Malmo, Sweden in 1991. My little sister Luisa was born in Lund, Sweden in June of 1992. I remember our live their surpsingly well, considering I was 6 years old. I went to a "dogis", a daycare, so I could play with other kids my age. It was in our apartment building a few floors down. We were poor, by American standards, since my stepdad was a student at the time (I dont remember if my mother worked since she didn't speak the language). But the things I do remember are important to my point.
My daycare was cleaner and more well-run than most here in the States. We had real food, plenty of play time, and a clean comfortable place to explore. Since my mother was a single parent, I have been in and seen many daycare centers in the States.
We had a fairly nice apartment, a car, and took the train or walked to most places because it was close by. Our apartment complex was clean and well cared for. When my mother delivered, she was only in the hospital for two days. She jokes that when I was born she left the hospital with so much stuff that she needed an extra suitcase but my sister was only given a onesie in Sweden. And the best part: she walked out without a bill. Delivering a baby in a hospital in the US these days runs about $10,000 and up when you factor in the doctor's fee and hospital fee. C-section? Complications? Even costlier.
I know what you are thinking: "well you won't pay the bill with national healthcare but someone will." True. But I pay taxes that pay for your roads, your policemen, and your food stamps, so isn't it fair? Besides, isn't this the concept that Jesus taught in the New Testament to feed and clothe the hungry and naked? How many homeless and destitute people exist in this country? How many single parents struggling to make ends meet? How many families are losing their homes? How many of the aforementioned can afford to pay to see a doctor when illness strikes them or for medication to keep them healthy and alive? None. Does that mean they should be left to die because they can't afford to pay? For all our altruistic democracy, we are failing the very people our government was set up to help. Healthcare is a human right, not a luxury.
I have two small examples that I wanted to mention.
The first is undocumented workers' or immigrants' children's access to healthcare. In Utah, there is a law that no child, regardless of their parents' citizenship status, is denied healthcare. Should a child be left to die because their parents don't have citizenship? What if that were your child? I didn't think so. So, children whose parents are undocumented are on state-run Medicaid and can be immunized, treated, and hospitalized without fear of repercussion to their parents. This is one positive step towards a shifting view of medical access from only the luxury of the rich, to becoming a right for all mankind, regardless of citizenship and income. (Some of these undocumented workers DO pay taxes and contribute, but that's another topic for another time).
The second is an first-hand experience in how much pharmaceutical companies profit off medications in the U.S.. On our trip to Puerto Rico in May, Janene (my mother in law) needed to get a prescription from the pharmacy because she wasn't feeling well. When we went she asked me to ask the pharmacist for the generic brand because the pill ran about $60 a piece here and they wouldn't take her insurance. I translated her request and the pharmacist said she didn't have the generic. We asked her how much it was anyway, since she needed it. $6 a pill. Six dollars versus sixty. Thats a $54 dollar profit the drug company gets for each pill prescribed in the U.S. No wonder their CEOs have private jets.
Now imagine an elderly person on a fixed income. Many have an average of 3 or 4 medications they take a month, often its upwards of 6 or 7. How can Grandma afford to pay for her medications if her insurance doesn't cover them (which they usually don't; or they cover a small amount--leaving the bulk for the patient to pay)? Drug companies are, quite literally, ripping off little old ladies for that 90% profit margin.
So, to conclude my incoherent rant, I want to say simply this: the next time you hear the words "socialized medicine" and your mind flashes to the former Soviet Union and that evil word "communism", take a minute to think about what it would mean for this country and the regular citizens who would benefit from it. I know that as a future doctor's wife, maybe I am jeopardizing my chances of having that Range Rover I want, but I will sleep better at night knowing that some little old lady will live another day because of my selflessness.
