I'm selfish: I want the sort of health care that other Developed Nations have.

After seeing SICKO I really have become somewhat selfish in that even more than a reform of our foreign policy, I want to be able to get medical care if I get cancer, heart disease or some other illness, just like the French, English, Canadians and Cubans. A number of people close to me have been stricken by illness. I expect to be stricken any day by something bad, and I'm not insured because insurance didn't help me very much when I had it.

I thought other issues meant more to me, like the Supreme Court appointments, Row V Wade, making amends to the world after our hideous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but I'm so fucking angry that we have squandered more than a trillion dollars (and, projecting into the future, possibly as much as three trillion), on these wars... Murdering innocent people, and having our own young men and women slaughtered for nothing other than to enrich a few members of an elite oil dynasty.

Now I'm thinking we need to take care of our own citizens.

I'm sorry, but I'm so damned angry I can't even type.

:hug:

The sad truth is we are going down a horrendous path where aging uninsured or underinsured elderly will likely find ways to speed their own demise, finding no other alternative. If they have to decide between paying for heat or eating, it is unlikely that medications will be purchased or doctor visits maintained...

My parents have been gone for twenty years, but their standard of living, their ability to pay their own health care and to avoid the fear of "pre-existing" (and thus non-covered) condition was so dramatically better than what we face today, though they made so much less.


There is an article on Salon today of a very prominent US diplomat now languishing in long term care. His family is losing everything and still forced to bankrupt themselves to pay the $6K per month that medicare/medicaid will not. Just emblematic of the fact that even the once "better off" middle class is being dismantled.

and 3 nephews who all live in Canada and I want the same health insurance they have!

could not believe we do not have "free" health care...ghana has free healthcare... one must be in school,working,disabled,or a mother to receive healthcare. if you are healthy and do not work..no healthcare. ghana also has retirement ad healthcare if one has enough years of working.

:sarcasm:


(I want it, too.)

But I was born here and I do love this country with a passion.

It's so hard to believe what Bush has done to this nation in seven years. It's just so surrealistic, and so horrible.

Are you a Commie?

including the 35 hour work week and all the vacation.

After seeing "Sicko" I understood why our government tries so hard to make us hate the French.

I am learning German, which my husband already speaks. Last week we went to a local conversation group to practice our skills. While chatting about the reasons why we are moving away from the area in the spring (I've had a hell of a time finding a full-time job), the others realized they couldn't think of a German word for "benefits," in reference to things like health insurance, life insurance, retirement accounts. A comparable term just doesn't exist. Having medical care, being able to retire, those are just givens in those societies, not benefits you yourself have to pay for separately from taxes.

It's compassion.

We saw SICKO this week & I am still moved to tears when I think of the stories in it. I love MM.

you bastard.

Some generation in the future might (though I hold out hope). But I think people who serve corporate interests above the people will continue to get elected.