Health Care

So I've been relativly quiet regarding the healthcare debate. Mostly because it is just something that I'd rather just let happen around me than deal with directly. Also while I feel that need a massive overhaul to our healthcare plan I think that forcing everyone to get insurance isn't the answer. I mean we forced everyone to get car insurance and that's great! But I have the minimum insurace possible because I can't afford any more. Should something happen where I need my insurance I am fucked because my deductibles are high and the damage covered is pretty low. So sorry guy.

The same thing will happen with health care. Sure I'll have insurance but it won't be enough to actually do anything.

Of course right now I sound like a conservative so lets branch the conversation out a bit rather than leaving it focused on myself...even though I am far more interesting.

Issue one with healthcare. 80% of American's are satisfied with their current healthcare plan. I didn't make that up I got it out of the august issue of Time Magazine which is well worth the subscription I must say. That is a statistic that boggled my mind until I started to deconstruct it. That is going to be the rest of this entry then I am going home and eating because I REALLY want to.

First of that 80% I have to wonder just how many people have made any sort of signifigant use of our healthcare system. I bet the number is pretty low, I'd bet pretty solidly actually that the number is really low.

Next America is one of the most unhealthy industrialized nations in the whole fucking world. No seriously. This is the conversation that nobody is having at the moment. As I talked about last post we have people giving themselves scurvy because they aren't eating right, on the flip side obesity is rampant, and we have the hightest infant mortality rate of any industrialized nation in the world by a wide margin. Why is the infant mortality rate so high? They don't know studies are being done left and right but they are starting to realize that it is partly to do with the insanely poor health of the mothers. Parents don't go to annual check ups, and fuck they don't really bring their kids to annual checkups either. There is a huge faction of people who wait until they are nearly dead before they go to the doctors only to realize that massive amounts of pain and discomfort could of been avoided had they just gone early.

Health is one of those things that is just so utterly, and pathertically misunderstood in our country. We are ignorant of the way our bodies function to a fault, and as a result we have massive problems with our health, from these healthcare problems arise. We have people who eat like shit but excercise thinking that the two will balance each other out (they don't). We have people who think they can not sleep for days on end and crash then when the crash is over everything is fine and they are good to go again (they aren't). We have scurvy kid who if I ever meet him I will prolly chew him out for his utter stupidity.

In short we have a nation full of people who don't know how to take care of themselves claiming that they are getting perfectly acceptable healthcare.

No wonder why it is a hard sell.

The thing is I am part of the problem, I am just as ignorant as the rest. So what can I do? Really though I want a world where I can get a 6 month check up, and be able to afford to pay for whatever it is we find because we caught it early enough. That's not a world I live in now and I don't think that is a world Obama can give us.

Next time I tackle this issue (prolly tomarrow) I'll go into things like why the costs are so out of control and some other stuff, but right now I am fucking hungry.