National Health Care a Basic Human Right?

In a word YES. It seems to me that there are many individuals in this country who feel that a person should only have health care if they deserve it. The idea of this is ridiculous and selfish. It seems to me yet again I have run into another human being that has been fortunate enough in their lives to have worked hard and prospered well and has now decided that only the people that live like they do and make similar decisions about their lives should have health care.

This attitude that only the better few should have health care in this country is quite frightening to me. Who is anyone to tell me that because I chose a profession that I would have to supply my own retirement and my own health care I am not entitled to expect health care because it was not employer provided? The fact that I work hard every day does not matter at all? Here is my beef with this attitude.

The first problem with this is that people in my generation were raised to work hard and you will be rewarded for it. If you went to work for a company as simple as McDonald's you were told urban legends of people who climbed the way up the ranks of order taker to store manager to corporate management because they just applied themselves. This was at the time relatively believable. To this day Walmart still feeds this crap to their employees at the same time they prevent these poor souls from unionizing. This theory was doomed from the get go. These companies supply access to health care. It costs so much to the average worker that they could never aquire coverage. This allows the company to look like they care for their employees but really it is just smoke and mirrors.

The second problem I have with this attitude is that there are more careers today that don't provide health care. With the current recession turning into a depression faster than anyone can blink plus the cost of health care spiraling out of control, most companies are choosing to not provide quality health care to their employees, if not at all. Back in the day you could go into a profession that did not provide health care because you could afford to pay for it your self. This is nearly impossible for the majority of individuals in the position I find myself in. I am forced out of my industry and back to school to get a degree in hopes that there will be a company generous enough to provide some kind of coverage for me when I work for them.

WAKE UP! The cost of health care is killing our country. It is completely ignorant that we have people in this country who have to file for bankruptcy because of medical bills. It is completely ignorant to have children wandering around without health care coverage. It is completely ignorant to expect people to cut your hair, clean your house, do your dry cleaning, serve you at a restaurant, work in the back offices of doctors, mow your lawn, build your house, fix your car, install your cable and pick up your trash without health coverage. Further more if this was not an expense for companies they could use this money to invest in their company to produce more jobs.

Everyone is in a stink about whether the Big 3 should get bailed out of this mess they are in. While I don't think that they should and firmly believe that the reason they are in this mess is a combination of the unions pushing to hard and the management caving into something they knew that the company could not afford I do think that we may not be having this conversation if there was national health care in this country. This is an extensive expense that no one will be able to sustain for much longer. If health care is not reformed in this country there will be many more companies that will fail. They may not make the news that the Big 3 has created but the jobs will be lost just the same. Do you really think people will build a car for you without some kind of health care coverage? Really? Come on people get a clue. You don't really think that this will be the next profession to get added to the ranks of pay without health coverage do you?

All the while I am told that I should own the business and that way I would have health coverage. This is only the next excuse used by people who are too selfish to look past their nose and their blessed profits to understand that most business owners are uninsured along with their workers. Get real. Yes you will have to pay more taxes. Get over it. Deal with it and move on. Thanks to two wars the Bush administration took on without knowing how to pull their head out of their ass we have a deficit in this country. You voted him in. You pay for consequences. If people had not been so selfish to begin with we would not be having this conversation.