Socialized Medicine Scare

My response to the socialized medicine ads being run opponents to healthcare reform:

If you have adequate healthcare and you are secure in the feeling that you will have access to care for the rest of your life then there is no need for you to worry about healthcare reform. If there is a chance you might loose the job that provides your healthcare coverage or you might loose the ability to pay for your own healthcare then you should be very interested in how this debate plays out.

Here is an interesting comparison. Legal representation is always provided for criminal suspects if they cannot afford to pay for it. If the suspect can pay, he get the representation he can afford. In the legal system, more money gets better quality representation. This is not debateable. I am aware that legal representation is a right guaranteed by the constitution while there is no direct mention of health care. From this point of view there is no comparison between the justice system and healthcare.

There is another possible point of view. Lack of healthcare access can be a threat to a person's life and life is widely accepted as one of our "inalienable rights". I don't expect that rich person to be forced to the same level of care that I can afford and i don't expect the same level of care the wealth person can afford. I would like to have some access to care that might prolong my life or prevent premature death from some treatable disease.

What is really happening here is that wealthy people are afraid they will have to share their top quality healthcare providers with a waiting room full of poor people. I have personally witnessed the difference in the quality of care and the quality of facilities between well-off neighborhood clinics and poor neighborhood clinics. If I had the money I too would prefer the wealthy neighborhood. I don't have the money and I would be happy to see a doctor in any neighborhood. The opponents are using scare tactics to generate pressure to oppose reform. The exaggerations and misleading statements are intended to manipulate the masses by making the majority of people believe their healthcare is threatened. If the prices continue to increase the income level that provides adequate access is going to increase as well. More people will loose access. Wealthy people will have to pay more.

What we need is a rational plan to subsidize lower income families and the small businesses who employ them to enable their access to healthcare. We need laws to prevent denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. We need laws to tax employers who refuse to provide adequate coverage for employee and families. We need oversight of insurance companies that use drastic rules to deny coverage for expensive treatments. We need to stop insurance company accountants setting the rules for treatment and ignoring doctors' and providers' recommendations. We must put some controls in place to limit the outrageous inflation that has driven healthcare costs out of the reach of so many people including bussinesses. We could actually subsidize doctors' insurance costs if they voluntarily provide lower income care at reduced prices.

What is intended is making healthcare accessible to more people at the lower end of the income scale and possiblly reducing costs to employers who want to provide coverage to employees. There is no threat to the care accessible by people who can afford it. There certainly may be a tax required to pay for it; if you would rather have three people die from lack of care than pay an additional 1% tax that is a reflection on your personal greed. In this country, we have been strangling our government in recent years by refusing to provide the means for the services we demand. even without healthcare reform we need some additional taxes to help our government operate.