A big fucking deal

The president won, and the vice president said the F-word in pure happiness. That’s cool. I like people who dare to say it, in particular when it appears inappropriate (I guess it’s that little rebel in me). The train has started to move, but Obama’s reform is not really a health reform. It’s rather an insurance reform, a step in the right direction, a beginning. But it doesn’t even touch the real problem.

All over, the US health care system is the most inefficient in the world. USA is spending 16% of the GNP on health care, for about half the population. For comparison, Canada and European countries are spending 8-9% of the GNP to give health care for the entire population. And it’s been like this for more than 40 years. Basic health care is offered by public hospitals. We pay for it over the tax bill; about 7% of the tax is for health care and social services, such as one year maternity (or paternity) leave. The rich and wealthy can buy additional services and cosmetic surgery if they want to. Yes, that’s possible, even in the most fucked up “socialist regimes” in Northern Europe (sorry about the F-word, it's just my Tourette again).

The American system is sick, infected by parasites sucking money out of the system; insurance companies, drug companies, hospitals, and lawyers (the lawyer assholes are everywhere). The main purpose of the US system is, not to produce health care for the people, but to make profit for the companies involved. The republicans are their loyal spokesmen and defenders (like they are for the gun industry, and used to be for the tobacco companies).

The health (or insurance) reform limits the insurance companies’ possibilities to refuse insurance due to “pre-existing conditions”, or cancel the insurance if you get sick. That’s insane isn’t it? The health insurance is cancelled when you need it, when you become an expense rather than a source of income for the insurance company.

The hospitals also take their big share of the cake. Some years ago, we lived in Colorado for a while. We didn’t have an insurance, since we were covered by the public health care in Winterland, within reasonable limits. When needing medical care for the kids, we learnt that it was important to tell the doctor that we were self-paying customer. Then the price was greatly reduced compared to treatment covered by insurance.

It’s amazing to see how those opposing the health reform are defending a bad system with such enthusiasm. It’s a good system for the rich and very bad for the poor (like USA in general). I know there are historical reasons why Americans are suspicious to government involvement, and prefer coffee before tea. But there’s no reason to be afraid of King George III anymore. He died in 1820, and is not coming back to force you into the British Commonwealth again (there’s not much left of the Commonwealth anyway).

In general, I think there are a few things that are best handled by government and authorities. This includes road construction, power supply, water supply, and basic health care. This may of course involve commercial sub-contractors to perform the actual work. I know this is crazy European socialist thinking (we call it social democracy), but all over it’s a quite beneficial system for both the rich and the poor.

But who cares about the poor anyway? They’re probably just lazy and stupid. If they were smart, they would have been rich and republican, of course; insurance agents and lawyers and vampires and stuff like that.