Buffalo Boy's Blog

Why does the so called Christian, right wing republican party have such a distaste of universal healthcare? I can not get my arms around that no matter how often it comes up.

Jesus was the most altruistic person ever. If you were sick, he healed you. He didn't expect a co-payment or anything in return.

Republicans fear is more taxes. But there are several ways that we can come up with the money to fund such a system without increasing taxes one penny or very little, say only to the rich (which someone is rich according to John McCain if you make more than $5 million a year, I don't know about any of you, I would consider lots of amounts under that to be rich.)

End this wrong war and immediately we save billions of dollars per year that could go to domestic issues such as.....HEALTHCARE. The other is getting this country off oil. End our dependence on foreign oil which we are essentially borrowing from the Chinese to pay for oil and we save billions more. This could once again pay for other domestic issues.

Taxing the upper tier of income earners (not the average American) would also generate plenty of income to help establish universal healthcare amongst other things.

The other area we seriously need to look at taxing is churches. Its time. Their profound influence in the political system and the fact that we have a "Christian" right wing of our political system says that yes, its definitely time to tax churches. Not just Christian churches, all of them. Whats fair for one denomination is fair for all.

Donations to churches should no longer be tax deductible either. Its all bullshit anyway and those who claim it are probably lying about it most of the time anyway. Churches and those who donate to churches would be fine with that for the noble cause that those tax dollars would be going to.  

The other thing we need to do is eliminate the waste in the healthcare system. Universal Healthcare would eliminate one thing, billing. The number of people to keep track of billing is astronomical, Watch Michael Moore's Sicko to get an idea of how simple it could become. You go for healthcare and instead of worrying about what they have to fill out for the insurance company, healthcare professionals can worry about getting the patient well. Instead of worrying about how many patients they see for productivity, they are rewarded for how many patients they get better.

Finally, healthcare under a universal system would be proactive instead of reactive. If you are proactive in treating a disease, the treatment is usually cheaper. If you wait till something hurts to the point that you have no choice but to go to the ER the costs all of a sudden rack themselves up. If you feel pain coming on and say gee maybe I better go just in case and it turns out to be something important  they can catch it early without a hosptital stay.

I've posted this before and I am posting it again because its an issue that is going to come up again and again in the coming months. If you think about it, we are already half way there. Medicare and Medicaid already cover a large number of people. I think the biggest thing right now is the system needs to be streamlined and HMO's need to be eliminated. They are the ones driving up costs. Them and drug/medical suppy companies. Expand medicare and medicaid or combine them to all Americans. Whats wrong with that if the funding is secured.

We should really be looking to our neighbors to the north, Great Britain, France or any other nation that has a system in place. They have it and most of them would tell you that while its not a flawless system and it has its prolems from time to time but one thing they do not worry about is how high their medical bills will be.

The basic premise here is simple, Healthcare is not a privilege, its a human right. The sick should be cared for, just like we provide a free and public education to our kids and fire and police protection to all. What is wrong with having a society that cares for its people enough to provide free universal healthcare to its citizens?