People get access to healthcare, Republicans go frenzy

Honestly, something is going to have to break in the next 20-30 years in American healthcare as far as costs/regulation/overall structure goes. I like lot of the ideas in other socialized systems, but there is a lot of positives to be had in the current American healthcare system as well.

I think the core problem is when people got cancer or were attacked by wild badgers or got hit by a runaway carriage or whatever 150 years ago they just plain fucking died. Now we have all this fancy technology and knowledge that helps prevent that. But nothing is free. Is healthcare an absolute requirement to life now? Maybe not, but in a perfect world we'd be able to figure out a way to distribute this awesome resource without too much unfairness. Like so many things in life, the answer to this question isn't easy, because if it was we'd already have figured it out, Goddammit.

 

Just a few years ago, people who were newly diagnosed with terminal illnesses were still dying because they couldn't get health care unless it was out of pocket. Calling a condition "pre-existing" when it wasn't part of the patient's health at the start of their policy is a dick move. Making someone pay into an insurance policy for a year until their life-saving medication can be covered is a dick move. Because of the latter dick move, I went right back under the poverty line so I wouldn't die, and it was shown to me that it's cheaper to stay on welfare than actually get a job. That's really, really dumb. And the reason I can use those two moves as an example is because they could happen to anyone interested in health insurance up til at least this past June, not just those with diabetes.