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AnimusRex -> RE: So now the Health Care debate is a color issue? (11/20/2009 9:49:41 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Hierodule
Its not a race issue its a class issue.
A-fucking-men
Class is the real taboo in American politics. We have a decent handle on racism, but class is the thing we are ashamed to even acknowledge, let alone discuss. A common man gets sent to prison for life for stealing a slice of pizza, but a Wall Streeter who steal billions pays a fine and gets home in time for his massage. Dickens couldn't write something so outrageous.
Rich black people (And yes, there are more than you think) get good health care just like white people. It is poor and working class people who get treated terribly. Its only a race issue tangentially, because blacks are over-represented in the poor class.
As for that boy whose family wont get treatment for his prosthetic arm? It is not a specific problem, it is a general problem. telling people to go across state lines and be smart shoppers for health care, or health insurance is a sick joke.
Your insurance policy is writen by a team of lawyers and health care professionals, not for the purpose of making sure you are covered, but for the purpose of making sure they never have to pay; this isn't an aberration from how it is supposed to work- this is how the marketplace IS SUPPOSED TO WORK. This is whats called an "arms length" transaction, and they are not supposed to look out for your interests.
As long as health care is sold like a used car, people will always discover that the policy they "thought" covered everything, covers only some things, like the car they "thought" was in good condition actually burns oil.
We don't say that a used car salesman who stretches the truth is an aberration; he is playing according to the rules.
And you know what, if we are talking about used cars, I say great- let the buyer beware. People are free to enter or leave the used-car market.
But health care isn't something you can choose to take or not. No one is allowed to choose whether or not to get old, no one is allowed to choose whether they get cancer or not. If you get sick, you are forced into the health care marketplace, where you have no expertise, no skill, no way of knowing what is good for you or not.
So we all are completely dependent on doctors to tell us what we need; and unless we have a couple million sitting around somewhere, we are completely dependent on insurance companies and 200 page policies written in legalese that would take an army of lawyers to decpipher;
And you have to pay premiums for years, maybe decades before findingout if what you bought was in fact worth anything; and even then, the insurance company is free to deny covereage forcing you to sue them, a multi-year process that pits your attorney against the army of legal minds they have on retainer.
This is not a free marketplace, of informed consumers and choices, of relative equals negotiating from a position of strength; this is a rigged game, a corrupt casino where the dice are loaded, the roulette wheel is tilted, the cops are on the take, the house always, always wins and you, my friend, are the fat pigeon, the rube who walks in thinking he can beat the system.
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