The government’s health care “bill”

August 17, 2009 – 12:30 pm – No Comment

Recently, there has been a lot of uproar about the United States’ government’s plan to create a public option for citizens to have health insurance. This would help the millions that don’t have health insurance and can’t afford health care.

There are so many people in the United States that simply don’t get health care because it is far too expensive for most people to afford if they don’t have health insurance. I recently had my gallbladder taken out and the surgery, excluding surgeon fees but including anesthesiologist fees was around $12,000. That was a pretty minor surgery that took less than 45 minutes to perform and I was out of the hospital that day.

I support the government’s plan to create a public option for health care because not only is health care outrageous as far as cost is concerned and health insurance can cost hundreds a month and you’ll still have a high deductible and no prescription coverage. A public option means that families could afford health insurance and food all in the same month.

However, the plan has been getting a lot of opposition due to some of the clauses in the “bill” (I put it in quotations because there isn’t a bill yet). The least popular part of the bill is the end of life counseling which some are calling pro-euthanasia for the terminally ill. However, it seems like the end of life counseling is more like letting people know what their options are and how their quality of life will be affected. There are several thousand people who end up very ill in hospitals for a long time and are uncomfortable, that could spend the last few months of their lives comfortable in their homes and pass away peacefully. Some people would prefer that instead of being hooked to machines in a hospital. I believe that is what the end of life counseling is.

I don’t know if the bill will pass through due to the uproar that it has caused. There are so many people who are so against the bill and I just don’t understand why. If the government were to pass the bill, it is not forcing these people to sign up for its health plan, but it would cause the cost of other plans to come down. I guess I can’t ever understand why people get so angry when they can simply opt-out.