Health Care For All

Here I am, sitting off in a corner of a Starbucks next to the Oaks Mall here in Gainesville, across the street from the North Florida Regional medical offices where I am currently between appointments for routine medical tests and consultations. For which my excellent health insurance, provided by my employer, USPS, gives coverage with a very reasonable premium. This is the same general type of coverage that our lawmakers in Washington enjoy. And many of them, Republicans for the most part but also several Democrats, evidently think that they are so superior to the American people that they would deprive the rest of the country's population of the same benefits that they enjoy themselves. By opposing health care reform.

As far as the public option that we have heard so much about over the past few months is concerned, it doesn't explicitly exist in the pool of choices I have for health insurance. Instead, insurance companies and FHOs have negotiated special policies with the government to cover federal employees, with their prices being relatively low. So, in a sense, there is already a degree of "public" in the available private options, at least for federal employees.

I have been opposed to efforts put forth by a few Democrats (and Independent Joe Lieberman) to pass a bill without a public option. I can handle that, provided that any mandated health insurance is not beyond the means of the people to pay for. Especially poor people. The only problem is that there is no guarantee that this won't happen, and I am strongly opposed to creating a new class of criminals, based on a new unreasonable mandate to carry health insurance. If there are provisions within the bill to lessen the load on the poor (and I've heard that there are), then those poor Americans should not have to jump through any bureaucratic hoops to obtain that relief and avoid fines or prosecution. After all, there are many living in poverty right now who don't receive available public assistance simply because they are averse to the red tape involved in it or are simply ignorant of their options.