Does America Care?

Barack Obama on the hustings.

The answer to the title, in my opinion is. . ..

Well let me put it to you: after all these years of having no national health care the United States have a very intelligent President who is trying to form a National Health Service and at every turning he is stopped.

Maybe he is going about it the wrong way and maybe he should get the actual states to start their own NHS and oversee the whole process but he has tried another way.

He wants to make it mandatory for everybody to have health insurance. Now that is a different kettle of fish. I can't remember all of the details but I believe if you can't afford it the government will subsidise you. 

Obviously this would have to be means tested but that's a whole other discussion.

The opposition say this is unconstitutional and is rather like making the population eat broccoli. Well they have to eat broccoli when they drive a car by buying car insurance, they have to eat broccoli when they go to work as they have to be deducted at source a load of taxes and insurance so if they are existing in the country they have to be available for treatment if they collapse in the street or if they are involved and injured in a road accident.

Last week Obamacare went before the Supreme Court and the court found in favour of Obama and you would think people would be celebrating – but no.

Some are, of course; he has his supporters, but many are chanting 'NO!' in the streets.

Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for President, has said that 'when' he becomes president he will reverse the law, people are being interviewed in the street and saying they will not vote for Obama because of this, and I ask the question does America care?

Romney, by the way, was the Governor of Massachusetts and introduced a kind of National Health Service – a State Health Service – in 2006 to the state and now he is kind of keeping quiet about it; he is finding it hard to attack Obama on this particular subject.

There are over forty five million people in America without insurance; if they are injured in a bad road accident they could be $45,000 in debt and will probably have to go bankrupt; appendicitis $15,000 - $20,000. Medical bankruptcy is at an all time high in America.

I knew an old lady who died about eight years ago owing Cedars Sinai Hospital in Beverly Hills over $95,000. 

Up to the time of her death she was called many times a day by debt collectors demanding she pay up; asking her if she had any relations she could get the money from and things like that. 

When she died, her daughter was harassed by the same debt collectors and she became ill and needed treatment; her husband was a stroke victim and needed treatment from time to time. Every time the ambulance took him to hospital he was billed for the ambulance ride and then the treatment.

I used to take him to hospital some of the times if I was available but the hospital bills mounted and he eventually died. This didn't stop the calls.

The daughter eventually reached an age when she qualified for Medicare; this was like a national health service for hospital treatment for senior citizens but she had to pay around $110 per month to cover her for the lowest of the low care from a doctor. She had a pain in her chest and went to the doctor; he gave her pain killers, recommended aspirin and sent her away.

I used to call the doctors and was given prescriptions over the phone; the doctor didn't have the time to see me.

My friend went to the doctors many times with the pain in the chest and was sent away each time with pain killer recommendations but she badgered the doctor and eventually after a year he sent her for an x-ray. It was found she had a big mass on her lung so she was sent off for a bronchoscopy; lung cancer was diagnosed and she was given months to live and has since died.

All my friends in Los Angeles were caring empathetic people; they all want a national health service, even though a lot of them don't even know what it is; so who are these people who don't care?

The ignorant!

I have heard people say they don't need another tax – you pay more tax in the USA than here, by the way; not necessarily income tax – and those people seem to think they're going to live forever.

When I came back to London last week I got to the immigration desk; I was in the queue and could see the little notice 'please stand behind the line until you are called.'

When the person in front of me was finished I just sauntered up and showed them my passport.

Going into the USA is different: there are people putting you in to various lines and when the girl who was putting us into one of the three lines available went off somewhere the first person in the queue – the line as they say there – wouldn't move forward and waited till the woman came back before walking forward. And the little notice there said 'wait behind the yellow line until you are summoned by an officer.' Summoned by an officer!!!! No please or thank you, kiss my arse - nothing. Then the said officer summonses you to him with two flicks of his fingers; two flicks, not one or three, but two.

Yes all my friends in Los Angeles are caring but America as a country; does it care?

It gives aid to other countries – it used to be to stop communism spreading so what do they do it now for? Are they that charitable?

I think it was H.L. Menkin who said 'never overestimate the intelligence of the American Public' and it's true in a way.

If they vote Obama out of office in November they will get the president they deserve so let's hope they don't.

I found this little tit-bit from the last election on the Internet from the early stages of the last presidential election which about sums things up:

Likely Republican voters were asked how familiar they were the healthcare plans of all their candidates, even including non-candidate Fred Thompson. The results? In Nevada 29 percent said they were familiar with Thompson’s healthcare plan. In New Hampshire it was 15 percent, in Iowa 18 percent, in Florida it was 22 percent and in South Carolina had 24 percent with some idea about his plan.

Huh?

Thompson makes no reference to healthcare in his short stump speeches and has yet to even enter the race much less offer a healthcare plan. Nonetheless voters in these states told the pollsters at Woelfel Research, Inc that they were more familiar with Fred Thompson’s healthcare plan than they were of Tommy Thompson, Tom Tancredo, Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter, Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback.