Henry-Louise Gates OMG!
 

No, that's not the topic of this article. It's a stupid issue and I don't give a fuck. I don't give a fuck if Obama checks out a sweet ass in Italy or if he says Cops were acting stupidly when they were, in fact, acting stupidly.

I give a fuck about health care. That's the topic of this article. I'm writing it hoping to hear opinions about Obama's Recovery Act or what, exactly, he's pushing forward because I don't watch the news so I don't have many details about his individual plan. I don't know if his version of Universal Healthcare is actually going to fuck us up rather than help us.

What I do know is that in the 1920s light bulbs were being produced by several different companies, and they all had different sized sleeves so no two light bulbs of different companies could fit in the same socket. I think it was President Harvey who introduce the idea of regulated sleeve measurements so all bulbs could fit in the same sockets.

The question is why, today, is there such a stigma against regulation? Wouldn't it make life easier if there was a regular shape on cell phones so we could use a universal charger? Sure it would, but the cellphone companies would make less money. That's why we need regulation, for when the bottom line and the welfare of the society are set on two different tracks. Imagine a society where the police were run by private companies. Where firefighters were privately contracted. Where there were no public schools, no buses, no prisons.

Why is it that if we do what's best for the health of our citizens, just as we already do what's best for their education and safety, suddenly the Stasi are going to move into our attics and disappear us for being unpatriotic? Or here's a question, if an unregulated healthcare system is best then shouldn't our military get the best healthcare possible? Why is it we give them a socialized healthcare system if it's so bad?

So I'd like to talk about healthcare, if anyone's interested. We should go into some details about what Obama is pushing, what is good and what is bad about it. It seems like media pundits are more interested in garbage so the least we could do as conscientious citizens is discuss things that matter to this country.

I definitely agree about how this issue seems to get shoved aside in favor of more dramatic or entertaining stories for big news networks. Obviously, which do you think the common American would be more interested in, health care or the president checking out some booty?

My hope is that, if the healthcare related bill in DC doesn't get approved, that the focus just doesn't shift elsewhere to more entertaining things (which it will). People should be out to better their society instead of just shrugging when they hear about some proposal and just hoping it turns out in their favor.

As for healthcare itself, America is the only wealthy (well, used to be), industrialized nation to not have nationalized health care. The opponents to reform point to other nations and tell horror stories, but why not look at success also? France, Finland, Germany and the Netherlands have some of the best national healthcare in the world AND a healthy private sector in that field. People in those places understand that if they want better than the basics, they can pay for the quality. So why is it that we can't at least give everyone the basics?

I'm sure what I've said sounds simplistic, but you need to start somewhere.

Yeah well the way I see it is we can do so much better. We can create the best health care system in the world, and I know that sounds really nationalist but I think it's easily in our grasp. The US might be down economically, but as far as our technology goes we're still leaps ahead of the rest of the world. We have technological dominance, we just keep it within our military and don't implement it with our society. For us, with a universal health care system the basics could lend every body the care they required.

I remember in conversation with you, you mentioned that a good health care system is in opposition with our economical flagships like fastfood. The healthier we require our citizens to be, the less money our top industries make. To me though, the United States is still about choice. The bottom line of this nation was meant to be choice, and if our health care covered basic physicals without copay, then people will have the choice with better perspective than they do now. We don't need to model Japan's system and require physicals for people to maintain regular health coverage. We can just cover the basics.

But then it still comes down to a pretty simple matter of people taking responsibility over their own lives. Do we really want to pay, as a whole, for the minority of people that think a universal health care system would act as a safety net for their diabetes or other behavior such as unsafe sex that results in coverage for AIDS medicine. Or, for example, if certain industries are exposing their employees to unsafe conditions, should the people foot the bill to cover that? I understand that this isn't an issue of just turning on a switch and letting the good times roll, but the stigma against universal health care is completely unfounded and people need to realize it doesn't mean socialism automatically. We could implement certain acts within the US's standards and adherent to the country's philosophy, such as giving most of the bills to the industries responsible for people working in unsafe conditions. It's just asinine to, like you said, not even guarantee every US citizen the basics. That's where we should start. People need to give up this stupid crusade against socialism and be realistic about what's good for the people of this nation.