I keep hearing republicans and conservatives say that no one in America is denied needed health care, that is a flat out lie and if we had a real media they could call them out on it. Yes it’s true that the emergency room can not turn you away and that they have to treat you but it’s also true that by the time you get to the emergency room it’s usually to late. If you don’t have insurance most people can not afford to go to the doctor when they first realize that something may be wrong and they only go to the emergency room after it’s to late. This way of doing things costs Americans billions extra each year and would easily be fixed if every American had the means to see a doctor when they first suspected something was wrong.
An example of how universal care would save money
Patient a doesn’t feel well but puts off going to the doctor because they have children to feed and a home to pay for. After a while they feel even worse and finally decide to go to the emergency room where they are diagnosed with cancer. Now they have to have the cancer removed and go through treatment to try and save their lives. This will result in a long hospital stay and if they waited to long and are terminal it could lead to an extended stay and months on life sustaining meds and machines. Since they don’t have insurance and the hospital will not absorb these costs they are passed on to people with insurance raising their costs.
IF this person had insurance they could have visited the doctor early and been diagnosed at an early stage and their care would have been a lot cheaper and more importantly their children would still have a parent. This quick care would have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars for this one patient alone and lowered costs to everyone else.
IF this person survives they will need to take meds the rest of their lives and will have to choose between having their drugs filled or putting food on the table. If they choose the latter they will go without meds and end up back in the hospital on the dime of people with insurance. They will also probably lose their home and their family will have to file for bankruptcy to get out of the debt of hospital bills they can not pay.
Yes the hospital has to treat you if you go in but that doesn’t help with preventive care or the meds you will need after you leave the hospital and you will probably just end up right back in there. Every uninsured person who seeks help at the hospital is more money added to your insurance policy. The facts prove that survival rates are higher in countries with universal healthcare, life expectancy is longer and they spend a lot less on healthcare (with many countries spending less then half of what we do in America).
All the facts prove that universal healthcare is cheaper and more effective so why don’t we have it here in the United States? That’s an easy answer - the insurance companies spend billions each year buying politicians, running misleading advertisement and flat out lying to the American people. With over 40,000 people dying each year because of either lack of insurance or health company decision how can we call ourselves a civilized society? Would we allow a terrorist organization to pull a 9/11 every month if they donated enough money to political campaigns because that’s what health insurance companies do.
I’m all for capitalism and the free market but not when it comes to human lives, there are some things more important then money. I’m not a religious person but the bible I read didn’t have a god who decided who lived and dies by how much money they had. If one person dies because they had to choose feeding their children over getting the help they needed we are no better then a 3rd world country and have no right calling ourselves a superpower or a shining light on a hill.
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