Thoughts on the health care circus...

The debate arising from Barack Obama’s attempts to initiate a health care reform in the US, to prevent 45 million people from falling between two chairs in the health care system, is one that doesn’t seize to amaze me.
45 million people have no health care coverage what so ever in the US, causing deaths and disabilities at a rate that would make any other country in the western world outraged that it was allowed to happen.
According to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the United States is the "only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not ensure that all citizens have coverage".

One of the things that disturb me in this debate is the fact that Obama is accused, actually accused, by oppositionists of being a socialist and communist. I myself studied Political Sciences in college and therefore know a thing or ten about the above mentioned social models. Most Americans seem to think that socialism and communism is the same thing, and hasn’t evolved since the 1920s. These people I would very much encourage to read about it. You might learn what you are talking about. When you speak of socialism in the modern western society you are not talking about a Soviet style system of total government hegemony. Simplified, modern social democracy recognizes that some parts of society are simply too important to the people living in it to leave in the hands of private or commercial interests.

What Obama is trying to push through IS in a sense socialistic, but to a very small degree. The attempt to control a vital part of US health care, the insurance companies, is interference with free market forces, but one that seems necessary. If people can’t afford a non- vital service that is ok. No one would question that, if it was a matter of luxury, but this is not the case. This is peoples’ lives and health we are talking about. Poverty should not be the deciding factor in whether you are able to recover from sickness or injury. To deny people lifesaving or life altering treatment just because they are less wealthy then the people who created this system is cruel beyond imagining.
Another argument for health care is that the US is the country that spends most on health care system per capita already, and still has the worst health care coverage in the west.

I live in Norway, one of the first countries in Western Europe that adopted a welfare system for its inhabitants after the Second World War. This state has a universal health care system that has functioned rather well. You pay a portion of your own medical expenses if you go to a doctor, but only up to an annual amount of approx. 1600NOK (260 $) including prescripted medication. This prevents people from coming to the doctor with every stubbed toe or sniffle, but allows everyone to afford health care if they need it. And did I mention that this includes if you need surgery? Doctors bill the state for your treatment and are paid in accordance with policies set to regulate the prices of medical treatments. Only elective treatments are excluded from this system. And you are of course free to choose who you want treating you.
And for those who think doctors in this system are dirt poor government employees, I can guarantee that medical doctors are well represented in the higher income tax categories. Lots of fancy cars and big apartments there.

I have had use of this system myself. When I was in college in 2007, I had a rather bad fall on a patch of ice. I fell in such a way that my full weight came down on my left ankle at an interesting angle and there was a rather sickening crunchy sound. I went to the emergency room and was checked out. It was believed that the ankle was sprained; I was patched up, given a prescription and a voucher for the taxi ride home. I was told to come in for a checkup next week, which I did. This is when things get interesting.
The follow-up x-rays showed that the fall and twist had torn off critical ligaments in the ankle, specifically the one that holds the tibia and fibula, the bones in the calf together if I understand the medical science correctly. This is pretty serious, if not treated properly as the bones would be likely to shift and not heal together properly. I was told I needed surgery sooner rather than later, and was scheduled for cutting the same evening. I left the hospital around midday the next day, with a new prescription and orders to come back in ten days so they could remove the stitches, and then three months later so they could operate again and take the screws out of my leg!

For all this: four checkups, two operations involving a fully equipped ward, surgeon, anesthesiologist, nurses and medicines I payed out of my own pocket roughly 260$. Of course I also had paid sick leave the three months I spent on crutches and couldn’t do my part time job.
When I came back with a sprained finger in the fall of the same year, I did not pay a thing.

Universal health care is not a concern of the wealthy or egotistical. That’s why they fight it. The system would be there to help save the lives and well being of the ones who have the least and need the most.
Those who support the efforts to shoot down the health care reforms need to wake up and smell the bullshit being shoveled by conservative leaders over this matter.
I was injured as a college student. If I had lived in the U.S., I would likely be walking with a cane or crutches today.