[Gráinne]

Originally Posted by GeorgiaMa'am

This will be controversial, I know, but please read my entire post if you care to respond to my post.

I do not believe that every person has the right to medical care. People have the right to what they can afford in this country, everything from shoes to food to justice. We may not like it, but that is the capitalist system we have set up in the U.S.

That said, I believe every person deserves medical care. We cannot call ourselves decent human beings if we don't provide basic health care to everyone that we can afford to. Somebody has to pay for it - but if we are good, humanitarian folk, then we should be willing to pay for it.

Even if we're not all good, humanitarian folk, we should recognize that it is in our own self interest to provide health care for everyone. This is one of the things that Americans will have to be convinced of in order to provide universal health care. I used to work with an otherwise perfectly reasonable, decent woman who felt, "I had to work hard to get a job where I get good healthcare. Why shouldn't everyone else have to do the same?" (I'll just mention that the numbers don't work out with this reasoning - there will always be people who slide to the bottom of the economy, and no matter how hard they work, or don't work, they will never get a job with great medical benefits.) What I said to her instead was, "You have to think of it from the point of enlightened self-interest." If only some of us have health care and others don't, the unhealthy ones will make the rest of us unhealthy. We want ALL people to be vaccinated against transmissible diseases so they don't spread. Likewise, we should want all people with the flu to be treated, so they don't spread it around. Consider the plight of a grocery store worker, with no health care and no sick days. They go to work even when they're sick, because if they don't work, they don't get paid - and these low-paid workers can't afford health care with no insurance. Yet, they are handling your and my fresh produce, trimming our meat, cutting slices of cheese in the deli and all the while transferring their germs to everyone who shops at that store.

Re: Insurance Companies - they are EVIL. They will do anything at all to avoid having to pay a claim. It doesn't matter if they are in the right or not, what matters to them is: can they wiggle their way out of paying? I have worked for insurance companies and I know how deceptive and underhanded they are, on a regular everyday basis. Anyway, this is probably best discussed in a new thread, if anyone cares to. But insurance in its current form, for all of the reasons stated previously in this thread and others, is a huge impediment to getting affordable health care in this country.

*clapping*

The bolded is exactly the scenario I fear at work. Although these days we have to get our temperature taken before we can clock in, I have seen many coworkers come in with non-contagious things that make them feel miserable, simply because they can't afford to miss a day (and/or can't afford the doctor). One was a woman undergoing chemotherapy who developed severe edema because she came back to work too soon after surgery.
(Our boss tried to screw around with her FEMA benefits; a little bird told her about a local attorney used by said bird who made Jaws look like a tuna. Friend must have name-dropped the attorney to our boss, as it got fixed right quick.)
In my own life, I have had to go to the free clinic, and I have also had the best care available. My feeling is that free clinics and the like are crucial. I am not saying staff them with quacks and give substandard care; in fact, I believe in a massive push for universal preventative care, especially for children. It may sound cold, but I think resources should go firstly for prevention. If you choose to smoke or drink yourself to death, that's on you and I don't want to pay for your choices.