5.03.2008

Ron Wyden's Health Care Plan: Mandated Insurance

There's been a lot of talk about the need for universal health insurance. Hillary Clinton has a plan that, if she is elected to the top seat and is able to garner enough congressional support, would require you and I to participate. Another plan that seems to be attracting some attention is Ron Wyden's plan, (D) Oregon. It would, like Hillary's plan, require you and I to participate.

Here's a brief synopsis of it, with the ability to read it in more detail if you so choose.

Frankly, I don't care what the details are. I am utterly opposed to government requiring the American People buy health insurance. I am not interested in any health insurance plan that requires me to be a part of it, regardless of if I have to pay $200 a month or $2. We're losing our rights left and right, year after year. The government was able to slip into our busy lives mandated car insurance, helmet and seatbelt laws.

Are we really ok with losing yet another right? The right not to have health insurance?

There is a lot of Big Brother talk in this article about preventative medicine, rewarding individuals and insurers who focus on wellness, prevention and disease management.

I can just see it now. We will be required to buy insurance. We will be required to pick from a private insurance company plan (which should make us all shudder, the fact that these folks will remain a part of the picture). Then we will be required to make regular preventative doctor visits. These visits will most likely contain required procedures and bonuses for doctors whose patients are following the "government approved" means of living.

Do you and I have that kind of control over what our representatives do with their health? Uh, not when I last checked. So then, why in the world should they have that kind of control over ours?

They shouldn't.

Proponents of the plan state we "will have the power to choose--will be required to choose" a health plan. I don't know about you, but I don't find it empowering to be told I must choose something.

Upon reading this article, it states that you and I would have a very comparable plan to the one enjoyed by our elected officials (which of course is paid for by you and I). This just begs some questions. If this plan for you and I is so wonderful, why no mention of our elected officials also being a part of the same plan? Why no mention of our elected officials being required to be a part of the same plan?

Instead of requiring us to buy into this health insurance plan, perhaps Uncle Sam needs to require these multi-national food companies to remove all of the harmful substances they allow into our food supply. Hormones. Antibiotics. Pesticides. Aspartame. MSG. High Fructose Corn Syrup. How about requiring a real truth in labeling policy, which includes GMO ingredients. How about requiring farmers cease the practice of allowing downed cows into the food supply and the practice of cows eating their own kind. How about Uncle Sam require big business cease altogether the pouring of toxic chemicals into our air, water and ground. (Honestly, is any amount ever ok over time?) Or hey, how about Uncle Sam and the rest of the System stop brainwashing us from birth into thinking working long hours for "the man" while making "the man" rich is something to be proud of. The norm. If that isn't enough, why not return to the days when a long list of side effects, including death, was enough to deny the entry of a pharmaceutical drug into the marketplace.

It's insane policy to require us to buy health insurance, espousing things such as "we want our people to be healthy" while turning a blind eye to those very things that make us, as a populace, unhealthy.

Whatever the plan is, do not require the people to participate. It is not the government's business to do so. And it saddens me to see so many people behind his plan. It saddens me because we have become numb to the concept of government intrusion. We simply accept it as the norm.

That alone is enough to create a health issue in those who believe that government is there to assist, not require.

3 comments:

tkn said...

yes indeed,

we need to get the profit crazed insurance companies OUT of health care.

Anything short of that is bullshit.

crallspace said...

What a wash!

The fact that ANY person who's been thru the HEalth ins. struggle can look to this and call it helpful or progressive... it's wakeup time!

Congrats on the post on the other site.

Nina said...

I'm thinking we should call a spade a spade. Let's call it Private HELLth Insurance.