Health Care

Article that explains the benefits of healthcare.

This article comes from the Opinion section of the New York Times online. Reading this only makes me wonder even more why people in the US are so scared of having a socialized form of health care. As the author is saying, having a national health care will not only be beneficial to the people who don't have insurance, but it will also be beneficial to people that have it. The Obama health care plan not only wants to provide people that don't have insurance with health care, but it also wants to prevent the abuses of the big insurance companies, thus offering better security and stability for the people who are covered and pay. Obama aims to stabilize the health cost and try to lower down the amounts that private insurance companies make their customers pay. And by using the money more efficiently, like the bill plans to, money will be saved, something quite positive in these days of recession. Insurance companies will finally be exposed and won't be able to scam people anymore !! Unfortunately, it seems that only a few americans have read the proposal (I'm sure they just like to moan and protest but haven't exactly read what they are fighting against ...).

Reading this article made me happy and angry at the same time. Happy because it proves that some people know what is going about and by writing about the facts (the facts of the bill, after that we never know what will happen, we can only assume) other people can read about that and be informed correctly. This made me angry, because even though some people are sensible enough to understand the immense benefits that this health care reform would bring to America, a lot of people still think that the government is working against them and will make them pay and take away their liberty by imposing which practician you will have to see (which is untrue, but again a lot of people just listen to Glenn Beck and others and take their word as the truth). Well ... now we are off to the second website.

Arguments against the Obama Plan.

This article from the Washington Post interviewing Megan McArdle (Megan is a blogger for the Atlantic Monthly blog, there is a little intro about her and what she writes about and used to write about). Now, Megan McArdle is not against health care per se, but she does not agree with Obama's health care plan and says that it isn't going to change much on the situation. She agrees that the current health care system is flawed, but argues that it is not as flawed as some might believe. She argues that not that many people are uninsured and that anyway, most uninsured are illegal immigrants and that the Obama reform won't take care of them, so that situation won't change.

And when confronted to the question of fairness (is it fair that not everyone has access to health care and is it fair that some people will have to pay so that other people that are not taking proper care of themselves so that they can have medical attention), she just argued that the system is never fair.

She is against Obama's health care plan as she sees it as bad for the economy and using money that could be injected elsewhere in society. But she does admit that health care in America is very expensive and that they do spend more money on it than other countries, but her explanation of that spending is that America is richer than other countries, thus it can spend more money on health care.

This woman seems very intelligent and cultivated, yet sometimes her arguments were a bit ... unsatisfying ? And her argument about the expenses in comparison to other countries is just sad and ridiculous. Because frankly, it doesn't mean anything !! Her arguments definitely did not convince me into thinking that the health care reform was a bad thing, but at least she seemed to be using coherent arguments (most of the time, not for all the questions) to back up her position and her position is not in favor of the current health care (though she's not completely against it), she just doesn't think that what Obama is proposing is the solution America needs. The journalist interviewing her made me smile, as it was definitely someone that had a very poor opinion of the current health care system. I was loosing faith in Americans when it came to questioning the health care system, but now I have faith again. People out there write about it, have a real opinion about it and can deliver actual, real arguments.