As we saw in the film Sicko, in America some patients go through life threatening situations that involves immediate healthcare yet are denied because of no health care insurance or because their insurance company does not cover whatever treatment that they need. Huffingtonpost states that, President Obama pointed out that a survey found that over the last three years, more than 12 million Americans were either refused overall coverage, refused coverage for a specific condition or subject to higher premium costs. We all are aware that there are a plethora of people in the United States that die because of conditions such as these. Yet, our responses to allowing more accessible health care to all citizens is that it will cause: Increase taxes, lower the quality of treatment and medications, or even something more chaotic as in lowing doctors paying!
In recent Kaiser Health News, Illinois patients with Medicaid are denied new drugs for Hepatitis C. This drug is curing Hepatitis C, but Medicaid officials are preventing sicker patients from getting this drug. Also, states that Federal law requires Medicaid programs to pay for FDA-approved drugs from certain pharmaceutical companies regardless of cost, but allows states to restrict who can get them. So on one end of the spectrum we have people that are struggling to get coverage for drugs that they can not afford; however, we have people that are in prison who are getting all the healthcare services that they need. Marketplace health care reported that the nation spends more than $6.5 billion every year on healthcare services for the men and women who are incarcerated. They go on to say that this is a reason why some inmates come back after being released from prison. Shocking right?
I am not trying to say that the government shouldn't pay for prisoners insurance only that if they can afford to take care of the criminals why not the innocent? As what was mentioned in the Sicko film full healthcare is given to terrorists that are in prison. Why not the woman who works hard here in America but simply cannot afford the breast cancer surgery that she needs?
I agree with you insurance companies are only interested in making money not in helping people. I believe that everyone including incarcenated people should be able to get at least basic health care. If America cut down on the money spent on prisoners then law abiding citizens could receive life saving health care without raising taxes which is one of the main arguments against universal health care.
ReplyDeleteYes, exactly.
DeleteBut we're spending just as much money in taxes treating and taking care of all these prisoners when we could be spending it on universal healthcare. If we had universal healthcare then these people wouldn't be trying to go back to prison just to be treated and all of that tax money could go to helping other people.
ReplyDelete