America is in Danger

That’s what I’m being told at least. You see, there is this evil, anti-christ in the highest office of the land, and his name is Barack Hussein Obama. Do you see that middle name? It should have warned us that this would happen in the first place. But this devil of a man pushed through this monstrosity he cleverly hid as “Health Care Reform” in order to destroy our country and everything it was founded on. And when he signs it into law sometime today, we’re all going down. All of us.

Now let’s go ahead and snap back to the real world, shall we?

It is completely unfathomable to me that people are this upset about Health Care Reform that they are proclaiming is the downfall of America. Are you kidding me? How is finally reforming a system that has been abusing people for years the end of the world? Oh yeah, because the insurance companies and therefore the politicians they pay off will lose profit. Oh dear.

How exactly is extending insurance availability to over 32 million more Americans a sad day for this country?

I have to say personally that I am really exhausted and burnt out on the argument that “I don’t want to have to pay taxes to those bums who are on Welfare and just too lazy to get a job.” I hate to break it to you, but not every person who lacks insurance coverage is too lazy to get a job. I’m not exactly sure if anyone is aware of this or not, but right at the end of the Bush Administration and the beginning of the Obama Administration, the economy and the job market were suffering immensely. Has anyone who made this claim tried to get a job recently? It’s not as easy as you think, no matter how hard you work at it.

I’m really happy for you that you had the opportunity to go to college and get a degree and a job. That’s really fantastic. The reality is not everyone has that opportunity. Student Loans and Financial Aid are a mess, and not just everyone gets them. You can’t just wake up and say “today I’m going to college!” and have everything fall into place with a snap of your finger. Not everyone has the same opportunities. Not everyone grows up in a wealthy family. When discussing the reform, a friend of mine said to me “looks like we'll be paying the bills for every bum out there who blames the government for their poor work ethic. grow up and get a job hippies” This just made me sad and angry at the same time. There are people out there who abuse the system, and it’s awful. I agree with that. But there are people out there who abuse every system. Heck, all of these politicians abuse the system ridiculously every day, but nothing is done about it. I wonder frequently why the poor are “hippies abusing the system” but the rich aren’t doing anything wrong.

This reform WILL help millions of Americans. I currently work two jobs while going to school full time, and I still don’t have enough money left over to purchase health insurance. It’s too expensive. I worry every day that if something happens to me, and I have to go to the hospital, I will never have enough money to pay off the tremendous debt I’ll have just because someone kept me alive. Think about that for a second: these are peoples’ LIVES at stake. In my opinion, health care should be free for all human beings because it’s a disgusting concept that medicine and services to keep you alive come at an astronomical cost. It’s just unfathomable to me. This reform doesn’t make that happen, but it’s taking the step in the right direction to stop the insurance companies from abusing people any more than they already have. One of the arguments I have heard time and time again is that the government shouldn’t take over health care, they should reform themselves. Hm…considering the current state of health care, it looks like they’ve been doing such a phenomenal job at that already.

This article from Reuters outlines the changes that will be made from this reform. The most important to me at least, and the ones that really make me wonder why people are so against the reform, are:

*Insurance companies will be barred from dropping people from coverage when they get sick. 

*Insurers will be barred from excluding children for coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

*Young adults will be able to stay on their parents' health plans until the age of 26. (Many health plans currently drop dependents from coverage when they turn 19 or finish college).

*Uninsured adults with a pre-existing conditions will be able to obtain health coverage through a new program that will expire once new insurance exchanges begin operating in 2014.

People will no longer be dropped from their insurance or denied insurance because of a pre-existing condition. How can you look at that and not feel a sigh of relief? Oh yeah, you have insurance so it doesn't matter to you. Because of this bill, if you with your almighty insurance lose your job, and you have cancer, you still have options. That wasn't available before. 

To wrap up, I was told yesterday that along with the fact that health care reform will ruin our country, that if I didn't like the way our country has run up until now and the "values America was founded on" then I should move. All I can say to that, sir, is that I'm not going anywhere. Because for once in my life, I'm proud to be an American citizen. A citizen for change.

Thank you to Congress and President Barack Obama for caring about the people, not the profit. 

Sidenote:

 I don't want to get into an abortion debate in this post, because that's a whole other issue, but just be clear that the pro-life Democrats worked to make sure that President Obama made the changes in the original bill to guarantee that the bill would not change existing limits on federal funding for abortion. Texas Representative Randy Neugebauer was completely out of line to scream "It's a baby killer" at Rep. Bart Stupak, an anti-abortion Democrat. I understand the health care bill is a hot button issue, but have some class in our House of Representatives. It's absolutely disgusting that he ever resulted to that.