A Canadian writes…
I came across a website that a woman created to promote a contest she is running. She’s having a raffle for people who donate money to her best friend’s sister, who has liver cancer, to cover the cost of her astronomical cancer-related medical bills. These bills are just for drugs and copays, which boggles my mind. Emily—the cancer patient—is a lesbian who lives in Kansas. Because she is a lesbian who lives in Kansas, she cannot be listed as a spousal dependant on her partner’s insurance, so she must pay for these meds herself.
I live in Canada, and this is probably why I cannot understand how this. Please, explain to this confounded canuck two things. Firstly, why the hell is your country so hung up on the purported evils of socialized medicine? No one else is growing broke paying for medical care in other industrialized countries. Other countries—including my own—have healthy workforces. It’s all funded from our taxes. What’s the big deal?
Secondly, and no offence, but, what the fuck is wrong with your country? Why do people insist on making other people’s lives a living hell (it’s fucking cancer!) and deny basic rights like health care because they want to fuck people of the same sex? What does sexuality have to do with health care, or why does your country think it does? I don’t get it. Really. Enlighten this incredibly lucky Canadian.
Colour Me a Confused Canadian
I find myself wondering about the sanity of my fellow Americans whenever I head up Canada to go snowboarding, a trip that takes us through northern Idaho. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen posters promoting fundraisers for sick people—sick children all too often—who don’t have health coverage and whose families are being bankrupted by medical bills.
The redder the state, the more desperate the need for socialized medicine; the more desperate the need, the more rabid the support for politicians who oppose socialized medicine. But, hey, at least those politicians are makin’ sure the queers can’t get married. That’s worth a few dead kids, ain’t it?
It’s a grasshopper-and-the-ant thing. The girl with cancer in Kansas doesn’t have insurance or sufficient savings, and now she wants a handout to pay for her emergency. Those who DID prepare don’t see why they should have to pay for someone who didn’t bother. It’s not easy to prepare – you might have to do a job you don’t want, or a career you don’t want, or put yourself through college, in order to get a job with medical insurance. But if you DO all that in order to have a safety net, why should you waste it supporting a ne’er-do-well who didn’t bother?
Please don’t argue with ME – I’m SURE not saying THAT I support that kind of thinking. Just trying to answer the question asked…
…um, I don’t know why ‘THAT’ is capitalized.
Q:”Firstly, why the hell is your country so hung up on the purported evils of socialized medicine?”
A: Because a bunch of manipulative, greedy bastards are getting rich off of the suffering of others and socialized medicine -which would effectively even the playing field, would be a major threat to their profits. Also, they are rich enough to buy crooked politicians who will spout whatever garbage they’re told, no matter how unethical it sounds to people with half a conscious.
U.S. Capitalsm is a Darwinian grab for resources. It’s anti-group anti-family and anti-“non contributor” by nature. It focuses on the individual achievement and contibution to the profitability of any “larger entity” (corporat shareholder)
It’s UGLY. And we let it happen. Or we don’t/won’t.
So according to our system “play by our idea of society (straight marriage) and we’ll cover your insurance.” Because the only way for the capitalistic philosophy to keep going is to embrace traditions that will support it. Which is REALLY weird because as a married person with a child, in a two parent, straight, two income family, I’m beyond understanding how ANYONE can afford to support a child on a median income with two parents, let alone single parents (my hat is off to y’all). The system is “Darwin-ing” or weeding out the lower and middle class and those unable to afford to stay healthy, well, etc.
Plus we’re the philisophical descendents of people who ran away from every other country because their resources weren’t enough.
Oh, y’know: we suck.
@Reymont do you have any idea how much a cancer diagnosis or heart attack or even an ER visit costs and how ill equipped one’s savings would be to cover it? How bout 100k or so to start with. Most people working at starbucks got that laying around, no problem. That had to be the most clueless idiotic thing I’ve read all day.
@Not Mel Gibson: Reymont was presenting the point of view of those who are against national health care, but not himself espousing said point of view, which he made abundantly clear at the end. Be sure to read through these comments before going off about how idiotic they are.