It’s been very tempting to just copy the phrase “people should be taken care of if they get sick or hurt” one hundred times and submit it as my article, but I don’t think that would make it past the editors.
But in truth, that’s the whole idea.
Following the non-start of the American Healthcare Act (which some of you might know better as TrumpCare or RyanCare) America’s health system, and its many failures, has been brought to the forefront. Both the AHCA and the original ACA (which you may know as Obamacare) have ugly, glaring issues, chief among them big fat payouts to medical companies who seem incapable of putting people in front of profits. In short, we’re one of the few developed, advanced countries in the world that doesn’t have guaranteed healthcare. We’re one of the few countries in the world where you can go broke just because you got sick. We have the intestinal fortitude to stand up and proclaim we’re the best in the world, but we’ve got middle-class people dying of easily treatable diseases because they can’t afford the ridiculously high prices? Excuse me, friend, but that dog won’t hunt.
If we want America to truly be exceptional, it’s time we start acting like it.
There’s a bill currently going through Congress (although as of this writing our representative, Tim Walz, has yet to get on board) called HR676. It’s not a sassy name, but what it says is that if you get sick, you’ll get help. If you get hurt, you’ll get help. No time spent on hold, no surprises when you find out this procedure was covered but this one wasn’t, it’s Medicare-for-all. You need help? You get help. Simple as that. Best of all, how do we pay for it? With a tax on Wall Street speculation, which you might know as those same chuckleheads that crashed the economy back in 2008. In case you forgot, the government spent our tax money to bail them out when they messed the bed. This is less like a punishment of the grossly rich and more like all of us asking for our money back.
Think about that. Imagine if you were told to invest in a company that’s on the ropes, that it’ll pay off in the long run… but when it’s back in fighting shape all the bosses just take the money and run. What would you do? Would you ask for your money back? Of course you would. We as regular, everyday Americans were told to invest in these Wall Street con artists because it would be good for the country. Now, almost ten years later, we’re working harder, doing more, making less, and we can’t even pay our medical bills. Our food is fake, our water isn’t safe to drink, and a bunch of us lost our homes. Meanwhile, these bozos cut our jobs so their profits go up and we’re supposed to believe it’s because they deserve it? Sorry Charlie, but you’d still be cleaning out your desk if our taxes hadn’t put you back on your feet, and now it’s time to pay up. I don’t think asking that our children stay healthy is too much to ask in return, but that might mean you’ll have to sell one of your gold-plated toilets, boo-hoo for you.
We should not treat “being healthy” like a Cadillac or caviar. We should not think that just because you happened to be born into a family with more money than good taste, you get to get cancer treatment and we don’t. We should not have our brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, children & even grandparents hooked on painkillers supplied by a greedy, Wall Street-backed company because they couldn’t afford to get that knee, or that back, or that ankle looked at. We’re the richest country the world has ever seen, darn it, and yet we refuse to keep our own people healthy because, I guess you didn’t want it hard enough? That’d like Adrian Peterson saying he could still go when his ACL was blown. It just makes you look like a fool. Let’s stop looking like fools. Let’s take the time, heal ourselves, and come back stronger than ever.
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