JoB
house and new resident…
i would add one thing to the health care part of this discussion… having health insurance does not guarantee coverage… pre-existing condition or not.
Not one of the medications i take nor the stop smoking medication that my hubby takes is covered under our health plan’s medication coverage. And their cost is substantial. so is the insurance:(
There is only one medication approved for my condition and i can’t take it. There is no “standard of care” at all. So, not a lot is covered.
We will have the option of changing insurance plans soon.. and we will, but there is no guarantee that my illness will be any better covered than it was with this plan.
For those with chronic illness… and there are a lot of Americans with chronic illness… not lack of character or bad lifestyle choices… chronic illness… health insurance doesn’t turn out to be much protection from the rising costs of health care… and yet we have to keep it because of the possibility of an accident or catastrophic illness. So, we pay for insurance and then we pay again for health care.
So when someone who obviously doesn’t know what they are talking about spouts rhetoric and blame at those of us who have to deal with the flaws in the system, we can get just a tadd cranky.
Believe me this wasn’t a choice i made. Nor was Ken’s a choice he made. Nor was JanS’s a choice she made.
Yet, this is what life sometimes throws at you.. and when it does, it would help to have the kind of coverage you thought you had created for yourself.
I certainly don’t consider myself a victim.. and my personal story isn’t such a bad one… but i believe it is true that people are being victimized… because of the assumptions made about how they could have coverage if they wanted to and how it is their own fault they don’t.
Think about it.. you get sick, you get blamed for for being ill, you really get blamed if you don’t get better, you get blamed for not having adequate insurance thru no fault of your own and then you get blamed for thinking that the whole thing just a bit unfair.
This, in a nutshell is why Americans need a Universal Health Care program and we could never have made the point as clearly as you two did.
I am assuming you just didn’t know because i don’t think anyone could intentionally be that rude or thoughtless about the suffering of others.
But you do now. And if you don’t believe me.. or anyone else who posts here… all you have to do is a little research and you will find that the facts have been understated… not overstated… here.
Of course, that will challenge your world view… but at least your opinions will be based on evidence, not misinformation and innuendo.