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Last Updated: Nov 6th, 2008 - 09:10:07 |
I have juvenile diabetes.
Every year I spend more than $1,000 on prescription drugs.
I visit a doctor at least twice a year and have to pay money on both those visits.
Along with many other employees in my company, I spend $17 out of each paycheck for health insurance,.
Sometimes, the health insurance company refuses to cover something for me and I have to pay out of pocket or wait to get my prescription.
I believe that the government should stay out of health care.
Spending thousands of dollars on my prescriptions can be a pain.
It takes money out of my pocket, and it can be frustrating when the insurance company doesn't cover my prescriptions. I have to wait a few days before the insurance company and my doctor figure out what needs to be done to get me my medication.
But just think of how long I would have to wait if the government was handling my prescriptions. The insurance company and the doctor that currently handle my prescriptions both know that if they don't get my medications figured out, I will go somewhere else.
Inherent competition makes them, and my pharmacist, work hard to keep my business. Yes, sometimes I do have to wait for my prescriptions, but just think of the wait I would have if the government was handling it.
Think of the lines that you encounter at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Does that institution care whether or not you get what you need? You have to go there, so what does it matter if they make you wait (as I have personally experienced) three hours to get a license.
But wait, you say, health care and the DMV are two completely different things. The government would care about people's health and wouldn't just let people die.
Think of education. We say that children are the future, yet the government has set up what can basically be described as a Communist institution in education. People have no choice in education, unless a family is lucky enough to be able to afford a private school or live in a place where vouchers and open school choice are available.
Imagine if the health care system was set up the same way as the education system.
Say you could only go to a doctor in your district. What if you had a specific ailment and the doctor chosen for you did not know anything about it?
If the government controlled health care, would you have a choice to go to a doctor who would really help you?
There are some situations in public education where Spanish-speaking students are shoved into classrooms with a teacher who doesn't know a lick of Spanish. If that situation is any indication, along with what we see in the DMV, I doubt that I could expect the kind of care that I get from my current, personally chosen doctor.
Some may say that my healthcare plan at work is socialism, everyone contributing for the greater good, but the only people paying for health insurance in my plan are those who are willing to contribute. In a government-run healthcare system there would be no choice; everyone would be expected to take care of everyone else. That's all well and fine in a "utopia" but it just doesn't work. I am my own responsibility. My difficulties should not be (nor would I ever expect them to be) forced onto any other person. I don't want to be forced to pay for your healthcare, and I don't expect you to be forced to pay for mine.
It's about personal responsibility. Over the years I have had to stay in school and get a job because I needed health insurance. Sure, there are those who can not get a job who need insurance, but there are also people who would be willing to help them along the way, such as churches and individuals (and yes, even without government intervention those people do exist).
What makes this nation great is choice. No one should be forced to have insurance or forced to pay for others to have insurance. It is bad enough when the school you attend forces you to pay an extra $600 a semester for insurance.
What we don't need is for the government to end any type of medical innovation or better healthcare by closing off the competition that currently exists. As a friend said to me, the idea of the government being the largest health insurance company in the country and the CEO of that
company being the president and the board being Congress - that just scares the willies out of me.
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