Universal health care

Mirrored from Oh Clementine. You can leave any comments there.

I think a lot of people have misconceptions about universal health care. There's a huge outcry of "O NOEZ OBAMA WANTS TO TAKE AWAY OUR INSURANCE!!!" A large part of my family is American, and they don't even know what universal health care entails. They think it means that the government dictates who your doctor is, and when and if you can be treated. This is SO untrue!

The biggest benefit to universal health care: the fact that it is completely free. Many of you may know that Jordan, who runs my hosting company, was recently in a car accident and in the hospital for about a month. She is now facing outrageous hospital bills for something that she couldn't control and that was not even remotely her fault. Good health should be a basic human right, not a privilege that you have to pay to receive. In Canada, you DON'T have to pay to receive health care. In the UK you don't even have to pay for your drugs; in Canada, you do, but at least you don't have to pay for surgery, your stay in the hospital, and every band-aid you use while there.

It is also COMPLETELY untrue that the government controls everything. If anything, the insurance companies in the US control when and if you can have treatment. Obviously this isn't always the case, but there are countless stories out there of people who really needed insurance being turned away because they had the audacity to get cancer. Yes, that makes sense. Let's give insurance to the people who DON'T need it and keep it from people who are actually sick. Totally!

Something else: if you live in a country with universal health care, you (gasp) don't actually need insurance. Here, everything that would be covered by American health insurance is covered automatically. As long as you are a citizen or a landed immigrant, you are pretty much covered. You can get additional insurance for cosmetic surgery, chiropractics, etc., but if you break a leg or have some crazily rare form of cancer, it's all free. You will get the health care that you need. I don't know anybody who has insurance; my family sure doesn't. We just don't have a need for it.

Another misconception about universal health care is that the wait times will end up killing you. Once in awhile, when the medical system is overloaded, someone does die waiting for treatment. However, it's relatively rare. Our system puts people who really, really need care RIGHT NOW at top priority. Even so, if you are injured or sick but aren't at risk of dying, you will almost certainly have fast treatment. When I was seven, I broke my collar bone and managed to get my earring backs stuck inside of my ears in the space of a week. I waited in the ER for two and a half hours to get my collar bone looked at; I had someone get the earring backs out of my ears almost instantly.

As you may know, my younger brother was born with a tumour on his heart. Obviously, this required surgery. It's estimated that his operation would have cost at least $150,000. I think it just disgusting to charge that kind of money (or any money, really) for a newborn baby's operation. My family is so lucky that we have universal health care. If we didn't, we would have gone into great amounts of debt. Our lives would not be the same.

Personally, I love living in a country with universal health care. I know that I don't have to worry about being put in the hospital for something I can't control and going into insane amounts of debt because of it. It's good to know that no matter what happens, I will be covered – it doesn't matter if I break my collarbone (been there, done that, bought the t-shirt) or if I develop a cancerous tumour on my brain. I can stay in the hospital for a year, have eighteen surgeries, and use five million band aids. It will still be completely free.

I just don't understand how you could cringe at the idea of free health care.