Thursday, November 23, 2006

Health Care Ain't No Rose Garden Neither

Lord Bling raises some great points about the retail gaming business in his last post, mostly things that I haven't thought much about. His post also got me thinking about my particular industry, and what a gigantic fucking mess health care is in this country. Happy Thanksgiving, the post will go downhill from this point.

I work in a hospital, and I work with children. Those of you who read this website on a regular basis understand what an angry SOB I am most of the time, but NOTHING on earth pisses me off more than our priorities in this country. There are 8.7 million kids in the US right now with no health care. That's not kids on Medicaid. Although that number is close to 20 million. Don't believe me? Click here.

That's also not the number of children without adequate health insurance. You know, like all those kids whose parents work for Wal Mart?

If you're one of those people who doesn't understand the economics of health care (like the fact that if someone uninsured gets health care and can't pay, those costs are shifted to the rest of us), you might argue that people without health insurance need to go out and get a job. You know all those jobs that the Bush Administration has created with good benefits right?

But, you cannot make the arguement that children are somehow responsible for their lack of health insurance. That's our responsibility, and we're failing miserably. Unless you want to change child labor laws, kids can't go out and get a job with health insurance.

The fact that we don't provide health care coverage for close to 10 million kids is a disgusting statement about what's important to us in this country. Good thing gay people can't get married, we might errode some of our great values that allow us to not provide health care to children.

2 comments:

Lord Bling said...

My post now looks asinine in comparison to yours. I bitch about not making money, and you said, 'Oh, you were finished? Well, allow me to retort!' and came back with the whole 'kids don't have health care' thing. Oh yeah? Well .... I made a picture of Mario stomping on Gamestop! Top that!

Happy Turkey Day. Hopefully yours was better than mine. I've got a sinus infection I can't seem to shake, and have slept through most of it.

Anonymous said...

Happy Thanksgiving Midg. I completely agree. We were fortunate enough to have excellent health care insurance for our daughter when she was born, but let me tell you, I think it is sick and wrong, no pun intended, that we can't provide health care for all children. What sick ass would be against that? Great post.