“My son is in rehab. He has a medical condition that has caused him to become hooked on pain killers and is undergoing detoxification. And thanks to Obamacare he can, at 25, be on his father’s insurance and get the help he needs. Without that law, he would be up the creek without a paddle.”
That is a quote from a mother I sat across from the other night at dinner talking of her son who has had a very rough battle with prescription painkillers. The point is not what he took or why, but that he is receiving help thanks to the much maligned healthcare package that President Obama helped draft: (based, by the way, on both a Massachusetts law – thank you Mr. Romney – and legislation drafted by a conservative think thank in Washington D.C.) the same healthcare plan that the senators and congressmen and federal judges have in this land.
Across from her was another lady who has just switched jobs with a pre-existing condition (I didn’t ask what it was) but she said thanks to Obamacare she got full coverage in her health policy. She was not denied because of the pre-existing condition, as she had been before.
But at the table that night, there was on person who was an outspoken critic of the healthcare program. She gave all the same arguments you hear the candidates give that Fox News has fed them. “I don’t want the government telling me what to do with my healthcare. I don’t want to pay for someone else’s healthcare. I shouldn’t be told what I have to buy or not by the government. I don’t want death panels.” And on it goes.
So I asked this woman, “Do you have health insurance right now?’ She said she did through her employer. “Then Obamacare is not affecting you. Do you have anyone in your family not covered by a health plan?” She said she did not. “Then Obamacare is not affecting you.”
The truth is, we have been lied to so much by commentators on the extreme right about this national healthcare plan that few people understand the real argument. And it is this. If you have healthcare from an employer, it is NOT going away. In fact, in two years it should become less expensive than it is now. (Operative word there is should…you can’t always count on Washington to do what it says it is going to do.) Obamacare’s real rub comes from people who do not have health coverage now. (By the way, you are paying for them now and that’s why President Obama and the Heritage Foundation, a conservative, Republican think tank, came up with the idea of making sure everyone played by the same rules and had to have personal coverage. That is what the individual mandate is all about. So you won’t have to pay for my kids when they get out of school and can’t find a job for two years or for Alice’s son who is 25 and on rehab.)
The healthcare plan is aimed at helping all American afford insurance. It is set up also to make sure all Americans get adequate coverage, by forcing insurance companies to take on people with pre-existing needs, special needs and even those with chronic problems that will cost a lost over the years. Everyone gets coverage, so long as everyone gets insurance.
And for the life of me, I can’t see how this is destroying the fabric of America as some say. It is NOT a war on our freedoms. It is a WAR on the escalating and run-away costs of healthcare. And we have a chance to win this war.
So, if you have insurance I have two words for you. Shut up.
If you do not have insurance, Obamacare is there to assist you in getting coverage. Because I don’t want to pay for you anymore.
And by the way, neither do the people who are making so much noise about this plan. They are just too stupid to realize which side they should be on in the argument. Obamacare is taking a huge burden off their wallets. Too bad it doesn’t cover their lobotomies.
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