Accountability in Health Care (Vanity)

As I am getting ready to head out the door to hit the gym this morning, I am noticing all of the Facebook folks who have changed thier status to something along the following lines: "No one should die from not having health care, and no one should go in debt for getting sick."

I'm sipping my coffee, having just taken my vitimins. I have about ten minutes to klll until I throw on my shorts, sneakers, and head off to the gym. Once I arrive, I'll be spending about an hour grunting and sweating in the weight room, and then another half hour or so enduring the seemingly endless torture of the elipticial machine.

It's a tough routine, to be honest, but it's one that I do about three times a week. I like to joke and tell people that the reason I got into weightlifting is that I've got a big mouth that I love to shoot off... and there is some truth in that... but the real reason that I'm doing all this is to try to be healthy, to keep the blood flowing and the weight down.

Since I quit smoking cigarettes and starting busting my ass at the gym, I have a whole new appreciation for the importance of being healthy. I used to have brochitis about twice a year when I was a smoker. So I quit smoking. I used to get winded doing household tasks when I was tipping the scale at 282. So I dropped about fifty pounds, and I'm working on dropping the rest of the way down to about 180.

Part of the reason that I made these changes to my life is because of ACCOUNTABILITY. I've seen the horrors of having family with cancer. So I quit smoking. I've seen what happens to people who lose track of thier diet until they reach a weight where it's easier to eat bon-bons while watching The Biggest Loser. I don't want to live like that, so here I am, getting out of bed earlier then I need to in order to trudge down to the gym and invest the time into my body.

So back to the plethora of people with the "No one should die for not getting health care, and no one should go broke for being sick" Facebook statuses.

First of all, in the USA, nobody gets turned down for emergency health care. In other words, if you need to have an emergency surgery to save your life, say after an accident, you will be treated whether you have insurance or not. You will eventually have to pay the bills generated for the people who save your life.

As for the growing broke for being sick - you know, the current system has people ACCOUNTABLE for thier health. I don't worry too much about racking up huge medical bills, because I have taken some steps to make my life healther, and make it unlikely for me to need to require health care. I know enough about capitialism to understand that FREE HEALTH CARE isn't really free... the money to pay all the health care officials has to come from somewhere, it just doesn't magicially pay for itself. That money is going to come from higher taxes (the goverments main source of revenue).

In a nutshell, what that means is that even though I changed my life in order to improve my overall health and longevity, I can expect to have to pay more money via taxes to help provide health care for all of the people who refuse to take care of themselves. The people with lung problems from years of smoking - a fate that I have (hopefully) averted by virtue of sweat and toil - are suddenly the people who stand to benefit from the increased taxes that will effect me and millions of other people like myself. The obese people who get winded from walking up a flight up stairs who could not be bothered to control thier weight are suddenly my burden, despite the fact that I've spent literally years keeping my own ravenous eating habits under control.

There are a lot of people who are making a lot of noise regarding how health care needs to be FREE and needs to happen NOW. I think if we were to socailize health care in the United States, we would end up having a system that is burdensome to tax payers. A side effect of "free" health care would be to put out of business many primary insurance providers (how does one compete with Free?) as well as creating long wait times. I'd rather decide for myself how much health care I would like to recieve as opposed to following "government set guidelines", the same government that can't even handle an automotive rebate program without gross neglicence.

That's it for now. I'm off to the gym. I'm sure on my way, I'll see cars lined up at mini-marts to buy the cigarettes for the day, and there will be line across the street from the YMCA at the Burger King, where all the carb addicts are piling on the egg-ham-cheesey-biscut things. It's funny how the people who are able to find money to pay for these things are the loudest in line to complain about how much health care costs.

“No one should die for not getting health care, and no one should go broke for being sick”

Realllyyy!!!!!????? I got one for you... No one should go broke PAYING FOR SOME ONE ELSES MEDICAL BILLS!!!! How's that sound?

Thanks for the great report. The latest “phrase” on the ‘net was probably taken from the DNC talking points. This line is no doubt designed to “soften up” the opposition, and was well “researched”.

so what do you do if you can’t afford health care? maybe the liberals way is the wrong way...but the fact is, things ARE broke.. and many decent, hardworking people CAN’T afford health care.. I work for a large gov’t agency, and guess what..they don’t offer free or reduced cost health care...they offer it at the same price i’d pay out in the free market. So I have no health care..and not because I spend it on fast food...don’t have money for that either. My extra money goes to sending my daughter to private school so she doesn’t get indoctrinated in the public schools. So what’s your snarky answer for folks like me, “tough luck”?

Awestuck: I’m sorry if I come across as “snarky”, it’s not my intention to belittle other people’s situation.

I applaud your choice to spend your money on sending your daughter to a private school.

I’m glad you mentioned your situation, because not EVERYONE who is pushing for free healthcare is a person who takes horrible care of themselves and expects other people to foot thier heathcare bills.

There should be a way to lower health premiums to make them a little more palpatible for more people. But doesn’t that mean “more competition among healthcare providers” rather then bankrupting existing providers by trying to have them compete with “free guvm’t healthcare”?

My status update in response:

The status update people are posting originated from DU, and it is utterly foolish. No one will die because they cannot afford health insurance, because lifesaving care without evidence of insurability is guaranteed by state law, nationwide. Moreover, no one should go broke because they are being forced to pay for the someone else’s health insurance. Period.

I don’t know what the answer is for America’s health care problems.. but I know its easy to fall into an angry position about those who don’t have it and want it. I would never ask another to foot my medical bills, (just paid off a 1500 emergency room bill), but I’ve always felt like so much in health care is wayyyy overpriced... you have doctors thinking they are indispensible gods, drug companies in bed with the gov’t, and HMO decision makers who don’t know how to work a stethoscope, let alone make life and death decisions. Do hospitals really have to charge 10 dollars or more per aspirin?
I agree that we need to focus more on prevention, my workplace is filled with plenty of the morbidly obese, because it is a sedentary job, and yet we have no gym.
If the republican “leaders” are with us on this issue, then they need to construct and push their own health care reform ideas, loudly and in public.

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