Health Care

Okay, you know what, I've said it before but I'm going to say it again. Health care and health insurance are not the same frigging thing!

I know that the small brains of your typical voters have a hard time working this one out, so I'll speak in small words. Health care is when a doctor... sorry, healing guy, fixes your owie. It's when you go to the hospital... sorry, doctor place... sorry, healing guy building, and they make you all better. It's when the healing guy prescribes you medication... wait, I can't think of a dumb way to say that. Okay, the healing guy writes the stuff you don't understand on a little slip of paper and you go to the place with all the bottles that isn't a bar and hand the little slip of paper to the person behind the counter and you get pretty pills to take. That's health care.

You want to argue about the efficacy or relative superiority of the health care system in this country, be my guest. I think there are probably a few things which could be made better. But you know what? It's a totally different argument from whether the health insurance situation in this country is bad.

Let me put it to you this way. There are various laws which say that a lot of health care must be universal. For instance, if you show up at an emergency room with a bullet in your chest, they aren't allowed to throw you out because you're black, a woman, or of the wrong religion, to my knowledge anyway. Maybe they do, but they're not allowed to. And guess what, they're probably not supposed to throw you out if you don't have the money to pay them right now. I still don't know if that's true, and if it isn't, that's a problem with health care, not insurance. But let's just assume that emergency care cannot be denied. That's universal health care right there.

Not only that, but I'm fairly certain that if you show up at a plastic surgeon with a fistful of cash and want them to give you a nose job, they aren't allowed to kick you out because they don't like the cut of your jib. That's pretty universal there too. So this talk of "universal health care" is bogus. There's already universal health care. If you can pay for it and you need it done, brother, the doctor will be right with you.

But see, if you can pay for it yourself, you don't need health insurance. It might be cheaper if you had it, but if you're independently wealthy, you can pay your entire doctor's bill in singles if you'd like (say, if you happened to be a very popular stripper). Health insurance is insurance, not "you can't get medical attention without this." It covers the expenses you can't afford to pay for yourself, in exchange for a regular fee. It's not in insurance companies' best interest to insure people who are going to take out more than they put in.

But that's beside the point. The point is that health care is different from health insurance. If your doctor accidentally cuts your leg off, that's a problem with health care. If your insurance company raises your fees 200% and you can no longer afford them, that's an insurance problem. That's why people go to Mexico for medical attention; they don't have insurance, and as a result, they cannot afford to pay for their health care. That's not a problem with a lack of universality of health care in the United States, it's a problem of money, and to a lesser extent, insurance. The health care is still universal, and what's more, it's universally expensive.

So I'm tired of hearing people bitch and moan about "universal health care." We've got it. Universal insurance, on the other hand, we don't have. And a cost-effective health care system, universal though it might be, we also don't have. And those problems have very little to do with simple issues. Health care costs too much because of insurance, specifically malpractice insurance. Drugs cost too much because we like them to be regulated. Sure, you can go to Mexico, where if a doctor cuts your leg off or your aspirin is tainted with lead, you have very little recourse. And it's cheaper. Ponder that, melonheads.