The Fallen Wounded
Massachusetts has spoken and the rest of us may pay a pretty penny in lives and money for it. With the surprise election of Scott Brown, the Republican nay-sayers now can alter the future of health care in this country. Perhaps it was the fact that Massachusetts already has mandated insurance for its citizens that caused such indifference to the remainder of the country.
It is well documented that a person dies in this country due to private insurance every half hour. We care more about smokers than we do about people who lack insurance…and access to care. Surprisingly that includes the Christian right, despite a clear mandate to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” The “moral majority” seems to have made a pact with the devil and will support anything other than caring for neighbors. The attitude of many of my Christian friends is this: I got mine, all’s right with the world—to heck with you.
Some have the mistaken opinion that health care access is plentiful. Just go into a Medicaid office and the government will take care of you (these ideas from the very same minds who abhor “socialist” care). The new Obama-care bill would have raised the family income necessary for Medicaid to $48,000 for a family of four. Sound like a lot of money? Not if you have bills to pay, rent or mortgage, college loans…oh, and medical bills. Some people just don’t want to step into those shoes.
The current situation with regards to health care in the U.S. strikes me as comparable to what we find on the battlefield. We exert tremendous energy to vanquish our foes, but once the battle has ended, we gather up the wounded—both friend and foe. We take our fallen enemies to a hospital and nurse them back to health. The very same people we were trying to kill with a bullet we now attempt to rescue with a bandage.
Here, in this un-Christian country, we blow up—or allow private insurance companies to blow up—individuals, entire families even, until they’ve reached the point—perhaps through bankruptcy or by reaching maximum dollar limits or simply by refusing coverage due to…oh, being sick—reached the point of (you guessed!) of being able to file for Medicaid!! Yeah, we finally get to have insurance…once we are destroyed and forced onto Medicaid!
The kicker is that the people who say just go get Medicaid also like to…yeah, complain about all those people on Medicaid getting a free ride. Gotta love Christian love, don’t you?
The Christian church (see my previous blog on the topic) missed an opportunity big time. They could have worked with those big bad devilish democrats to force out the for-profit insurance companies and said the country: Hey, we hear you. We feel your pain. And we’re going to do something about it.
Coulda woulda shoulda.
Massachusetts has spoken and the rest of us may pay a pretty penny in lives and money for it. With the surprise election of Scott Brown, the Republican nay-sayers now can alter the future of health care in this country. Perhaps it was the fact that Massachusetts already has mandated insurance for its citizens that caused such indifference to the remainder of the country.
It is well documented that a person dies in this country due to private insurance every half hour. We care more about smokers than we do about people who lack insurance…and access to care. Surprisingly that includes the Christian right, despite a clear mandate to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” The “moral majority” seems to have made a pact with the devil and will support anything other than caring for neighbors. The attitude of many of my Christian friends is this: I got mine, all’s right with the world—to heck with you.
Some have the mistaken opinion that health care access is plentiful. Just go into a Medicaid office and the government will take care of you (these ideas from the very same minds who abhor “socialist” care). The new Obama-care bill would have raised the family income necessary for Medicaid to $48,000 for a family of four. Sound like a lot of money? Not if you have bills to pay, rent or mortgage, college loans…oh, and medical bills. Some people just don’t want to step into those shoes.
The current situation with regards to health care in the U.S. strikes me as comparable to what we find on the battlefield. We exert tremendous energy to vanquish our foes, but once the battle has ended, we gather up the wounded—both friend and foe. We take our fallen enemies to a hospital and nurse them back to health. The very same people we were trying to kill with a bullet we now attempt to rescue with a bandage.
Here, in this un-Christian country, we blow up—or allow private insurance companies to blow up—individuals, entire families even, until they’ve reached the point—perhaps through bankruptcy or by reaching maximum dollar limits or simply by refusing coverage due to…oh, being sick—reached the point of (you guessed!) of being able to file for Medicaid!! Yeah, we finally get to have insurance…once we are destroyed and forced onto Medicaid!
The kicker is that the people who say just go get Medicaid also like to…yeah, complain about all those people on Medicaid getting a free ride. Gotta love Christian love, don’t you?
The Christian church (see my previous blog on the topic) missed an opportunity big time. They could have worked with those big bad devilish democrats to force out the for-profit insurance companies and said the country: Hey, we hear you. We feel your pain. And we’re going to do something about it.
Coulda woulda shoulda.
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