I don’t think it is possible for the government to facilitate comprehensive care for its constituents without sacrificing equity. Equity is sacrificed. When you take money, involuntarily, from those that have money to pay for programs for those that don’t have as much, then we have no equity.
I think one of the biggest problems with is the word equity in this instance. According to www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/equity the word equity means:
Justice according to natural law or right; specifically: freedom from bias or favoritism.
According to that definition there is zero equity in how the government currently facilitates comprehensive care. Currently, government is set up to be biased towards the rich when in need of money and biased towards the not so rich when passing it out. I bring this up only because the government is also flawed in how it helps people that need help.
As an example, let us take a family of four, two kids with parents, and both parents work. They have a combined income of $130,000 per year, because of this they are put in a higher tax bracket. Soon one working parent loses his job and their income drops to $65,000 per year. Soon after the family starts to struggle, having issues paying for a house, car, medical and food. Where can this family go for help? Not the government because they will still be considered to rich for help. So now we have a family who have paid taxes and paid for these services that are afford to those that need help but they find out that they are not poor enough yet to receive this help, even though they are in need of it. According to the book, on page 342, the poverty line for a family of four, back in 2010, was $29,326. So in order to receive the type of assistance this family really needs they would have to become poorer in the eyes of the government.
Another example of how ridiculous the government programs are run is a somewhat of a personal one. I have close friend who had a son born prematurely and was born with cerebral palsy. Her son has needed tons and tons of operations, operations that she could not pay for. So the government stepped in and helped her out a ton, still does. Here is the problem though; she has to be below a certain income level other wise all the governments medical help is gone. So she has to be below or right around the poverty line to get the help she needs. She has all ready had to cut her hours at work so she did not go over and once had to quit a job because she made too much. This makes zero sense to me. The government is helping her but also keeping her down at the same time. Why?
I’m writing about this to show how impossible it is to have equity in a system that is run one way only. A system of one size fits all. The single most important reason why the government can not have equity in how it facilitates comprehensive care is that we are all different. This country is made up of 300,000,000 plus individuals and not a single one of us have the same needs or the same wants. Just because a family make $170,000 a year does not mean that they don’t need help and just because somebody makes $25,000 a year does not mean that they do need help. We live our lives as we choose. For some it is more important to have a shiny new car then health care coverage. For others it is more important to have the latest and greatest iPhone then to sock money away in a 401k or an IRA. Making people do what they don’t want to do only makes them resentful.
I believe that the best way for the government to help ensure equity while providing comprehensive care for its citizens is to get out of the way. There is no such thing as one retirement plan that fits all, there isn’t. One person might want to save $2,000,000 for retirement while another only wants to save $500,000. They both worked the numbers and this is what they came up with, they came up with a number that suits them and not the government. Not to mention maybe one guy wants to retire at 50 while the other loves what he does and wants to retire at 90. There choice and there options.
Let’s take a look at health care coverage real quick. Everything is pooled into plans, what this means is that whether you need or want pregnancy care you are probably paying for it. Take this article from the San Francisco gate, old article, http://articles.sfgate.com/2001-02-16/news/17584231_1_health-plan-city-workers-health-insurance whether people that work for the city want to or don’t want to they are now paying for sex change operations.
People need to be free to pick and choose the types of plans that fit them the best. That is the only way for the have government to provide equity while providing comprehensive care for all. Please don’t misunderstand this that the government should not help those in dire needs, they should. Government should help all that are in dire needs, but that help can’t last forever.
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ReplyDeleteI do not really see any room for drastic improvements on any of the subject matter of the posts, but the length of some of the early posts was somewhat short. This looks to have been corrected, though, as every post is now of adequate length and information. Also, I found a few grammatical errors, so I suggest using spell check in word or whatever software you use. These are very minor issues, and overall the blog is very well maintained.
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