As many (ie all four) of you may or may not know, there's a big debate raging on here in the States about Health Care Reform. I try to stay informed on all major national & world news, but I must admit that I don't know as much about this issue as I should, or at least as much as I would like. My dad was watching Fox News & tried to pull me into a discussion about evil, socialist Obama's plot to kill all the senior citizens. I had to stop myself a few times from just snapping & calling him out as the xenophobic, pusillanimous, right-wing lemming that he is. And I say that in the most endearing way possible.
Anyway, his whole argument was that a government funded health care program would way the benefits of providing care to the elderly against the costs, & then drop their coverage & convince them to "die with dignity" if the costs are too high. Another one of his favorite arguments is that the proposed health care system is identical to the Canadian publically-funded health care system, which in his/Fox News' mind is one of the worst in the world. I don't know much about the Canadian health care system, but I'm pretty sure it's not that bad.
So I decided to do some research into the issue on my onw. I've tried to watch the news lately, but it's just too partisan for my tastes. And the only thing they're showing is a few people getting upset at the town hall meetings. So I went to my research tool of choice: Wikipedia. I just want a basic understanding, not a Masters degree in American Health Care, & Wikipedia's good for that. Anyway, from what I can tell, Obama is trying to do the opposite of what my dad think's he's doing. Instead of trying to "kill of the elderly", the reform is trying to prevent health insurance agencies from dropping people's coverage due to high costs or sudden & severe illness.
I also looked a little into the Canadian health care system & it doesn't seem like that bad of a plan to me. But then again, Wikipedia can only take me so far. For anyone reading this, I know it's not the most interesting thing I can post about, but if you've read this far & you know more about this than me, could you please explain it? Whether you know more about the proposed US health care reform, or you're from a country with universal health care, I'd just love it if you could share your knowledge. And I promise, I'll try to be a lot less boring next time :-D
