A recent argument in GOP politics has regarded mandatory vaccinations and if they violate our freedom. In a rudimentary world, this would clearly be a violation of our patriotic right to control the outcome of our own bodies (or our children's bodies). The problem is, we don't live in a state where people are in unconnected communities. Our environment brings us into contact with individuals who travel all over the world, thus exposing us to all of the world's diseases. As a nation, we use laws to defend ourselves against military, economic, and even cultural enemies and it makes sense that we defend ourselves against health problems associated with devastating diseases.
Contaminated individuals can spread diseases to others (ex. children who haven't finished their full immunization cycle because some vaccines take multiple doses, or people who have accepted a vaccine but are of the small percent who remain unprotected, etc.). Human nature obligates us to help sick people, so those who refuse vaccines and get sick are a tax to our vital resources. Speaking of taxes, resources, and health care..... This is one of my main arguments for universal health care. If a person with a seriously debilitating disease gets sick and ignores a visit to the hospital because they don't have health insurance, and then that person spreads the sickness to others, we could easily have a serious health crisis on our hands (think Ebola). That's what makes the health care debate a national issue, not a personal decision, and in the national interest of security and defense, it is imperative that everyone has access to health care.
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Today, The Supreme Court of The United States of America will begin hearing arguments in regards to the legal validity of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act a.k.a. Obamacare. Polls show that most Americans do not support the bill. Although I have hesitations about the make-up and design of the bill, I think our nation would be foolish to pass up the opportunity to fix the financial aspect of our health care system, which in its current form, is severely flawed. I say, let the bill function in its current form, and if it doesn’t work, then we can always go back to the disoriented method of financing our healthcare system that we were using when I was diagnosed with the most serious illness I’ve ever encountered. In September of 2009, when I started experiencing nauseating pains in my stomach and groin, I was a self-employed independent contractor earning about $20,000 each year. Even though I lived a modest lifestyle with limited amenities, health insurance still seemed unaffordable to me. Health insurance policies that gave me limited coverage ($10,000 deductible) were quoted at about $2,000 a year..... an amount that would have been difficult to afford, to say the least. By October of 2009, my symptoms did not get any better and I visited a walk-in clinic. The doctor concluded that I had a mild form of Epididymitis. He prescribed me some medicine, and told me to return if things did not get better. My symptoms did not improve. My wife was a college student at the time of my illness. After consulting with various friends and family members who worked in the medical field, we decided to add me to her “insurance” plan. (20% of all fees paid for by patient - $50,000 maximum benefit) In November of 2009, I visited a federal/state funded health clinic and was referred to a nearby hospital for an ultrasound. I was worried that my insurance company (United Healthcare) would refuse to pay for the impending services, based on the pre-condition clause of my policy, so I applied for financial assistance thru the clinic and the hospitals that did the screenings. Fortunately, I qualified for various federal/state funded assistance programs. (Not Medicaid) In any case, the ultrasound identified a tumor on my kidney. The hospital performed a CT Scan and confirmed that the growth was Renal Cell Carcinoma (RCC) a.k.a. Kidney Cancer. I then consulted with a variety of specialists and surgeons, and by January of 2010, the tumor was surgically removed. Chemotherapy is not recommended for patients with my condition, so at that point, my treatment was finished. Every doctor I visited told me my symptoms were not related to my disease. In other words, the pains in my stomach and groin were not related in any way to the tumor that was discovered on my kidney. My family practitioner accurately concluded that I had issues with my gastrointestinal tract, an issue that continues to this day. The tumor had been in my body for over five years, but it had never presented any symptoms (the most common symptom is blood in the urine). The tumor was discovered incidentally (accidentally) when medical professionals were trying to discover why I had issues with my gastrointestinal tract. Even though every medical professional that I consulted with concluded that my symptoms were not related to the disease, my insurance company refused to pay for their share of my treatment, based on the pre-condition clause that was written into my policy. Keep in mind, for something to be considered a pre-condition, the insurance company needs to see evidence in the form of prior symptoms that are directly related to the disease. Even though I expressed no evidence of symptoms related to my disease prior to purchasing my insurance plan, the insurance company repeatedly refused to pay for their share of my treatment. Here are some points describing a few absolutely preposterous financial situations that I encountered in relation to my situation with my insurance company, the hospitals, and the government programs that are designed for helping less fortunate individuals: 1. The hospital billed my insurance company about $1,000 for the first CT scan, but when the insurance company refused to pay the bill, I was charged an “out-of-pocket” fee of $4,500. The argument for this price discrepancy is that the insurance company buys medical treatment “in-bulk”, so they can pass the discount on their customers. In this case, I do not believe that the price discrepancy reflects a realistic cost savings for the bulk purchaser. Wealthy people generally have insurance, so in reality, the only people who pay the “out-of-pocket” fees are those who qualify for federal/state funded assistance. The truth is, I qualified for federal/state funded financial assistance, and they paid the entire $4,500 fee to the hospital. The divergence in billing allows for the hospital to bilk the government out of money. 2. My insurance company refused to pay for my surgical procedure, so the hospital charged me the “out-of-pocket” rate of $26,000. The hospital where I received my service did not have a government sponsored financial assistance program, so I was expected to pay the full amount. The only payment plan they were willing to put me on had me completing my payments in less than two years ($1,000 month). One week before my bills were going to be sent to collections, I called the hospital and begged for them to set up a more reasonable payment plan. They told me if I wrote a “letter of hardship” and explained my financial situation, then they might be able to waive some or all of the fees. A few months after writing the letter, they waived all of my fees! How does the hospital afford to do this? They charge insured individuals more money than they need to in order to compensate for the patients, such as me, who can’t afford their services. 3. Every doctor that I visited wrote a letter to my insurance company stating that my symptoms had nothing to do with the type of cancer that I was diagnosed with and that the discovery of the tumor was completely incidental. My insurance company was manipulative in regards to describing my rights as a policy holder. They would conveniently “lose” paperwork that I sent them days before deadlines approached. I had to call them on a daily basis to make sure they were moving forward with my requests to review my case. It was not until June of 2010, after I contacted them via my lawyer with threats of a lawsuit, that they finally agreed to pay for what was left of their share of the bills. 4. In August of 2010, my wife graduated from college, and we could not get insurance through her school anymore. Her new employer did not offer her insurance, but she was able to purchase it on her own. I was still self-employed so I needed to purchase a policy on my own, but no insurance companies would accept my application because they said I had a pre-condition. The fact that I carried insurance before the discovery of the condition did not matter. I was forced into a federal/state funded insurance program for a high risk pool of citizens. The bottom line is that the government ends up paying for the medical treatment of the highest risk individuals, and the insurance companies get to refuse policies for high risk applicants, therefore resulting in higher profits for themselves. My personal experience made it clear to me that the financial framework of our health care system needs to be changed. Federal and state agencies are disguising their required support of health care for individuals (many from the highest risk groups) under a variety of programs such as the federal/state assistance programs that I qualified for or other more transparent programs such as Medicare (elderly), Medicaid (low-income), and services provided by The Veteran's Health Administration (available to any veteran in good standing who doesn’t have employer based health care). Hospitals are charging insurance companies and the federal government more in order to compensate for people who can’t pay their bills. The bottom line is, we need to let our government fix this problem. If The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act a.k.a. Obamacare doesn’t work, then we can always try something different.... But to sit back idle and hope that everything fixes itself would be about as foolish as me letting my cancer spread throughout my body..... No thank you!!! Get it out of my body, and if we need to do something else in the future to fix it again, we can do that. The general population might not currently support the bill, but if everyone experienced a situation similar to mine, then I’m sure the consensus would be different.
Ever since I left Colorado, I have felt deprived of my educational resources. Life under the Flatirons in Boulder-Colorado had me surrounded by local left-leaning activism to the strongest degree. Boulder had (and still does have) a stable counter-culture; therefore members of right-wing coalitions frequented (and still frequent) the city in the hopes of antagonizing their enemies. This exposure to both argumentative forces allowed me to educate myself under the interpretation of different points of view. Because Boulder-Colorado is a political hotbed, free opinionated publications (usually left-leaning) are readily available to everyone, at no charge, in the hopes of politically proselytizing the reader. The most important educational resource that I sincerely miss since moving away from Colorado is The Onion. I recently acquired one of these top-secret publications, by way of the modern Underground Railroad, and I was astonished by what I found. Marijuana is legal to everyone!!!! Okay…. You have to pretend that you have a medical condition that could vaguely justify the need for you to smoke an ounce a day. From what I hear, you can theoretically go in to the right “doctors” office and complain that you have a headache, because you drank too much alcohol the night before, and you will receive a prescription for the finest Sinsemilla on Earth. When I lived in Colorado and read The Onion, the newspapers were splattered with advertisements promising you the best phone sex that a person could imagine. With free unlimited pornography online and prostitutes readily available on websites such as www.backpage.com the need for phone sex is over. Instead the mind-jarring advertisements that fill the pages of The Onion offer you marijuana and it’s accessories in its finest form.
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