In Canada, a pro “free/government healthcare” country, a young boy needed major heart
surgery, and fast. When he got to the hospital, he was told he would be put on a 2 year waiting list, and
THEN he could get the care he needed. Realizing his son could die in that time, the boy's father raced
him to the U.S., he was taken care of within the first few hours of getting there. It was well worth the
bill at that point. For this, and many other reasons I will discuss, I am against any “free healthcare” in
America, or otherwise known as “Obama care”.
First of all, the healthcare isn't actually free. Sorry to shatter the illusion...the term “free
healthcare” is purposely misleading and designed to trick the uneducated. The government isn't paying
your way to health, you still are. Ever wonder why the taxes are raising? Take Medicare for example, a
federal system of health insurance designed for people 65 and over, perceived as “free” by many. On
the contrary, in 1996 this cost 3 billion dollars to tax payers. In 2009, 107 billion. Now it has raised to
427 billion, but that's just another number for free, right?
If all healthcare was free, the standards of our medical department, would disappear. People
come from all over the world and pay to be treated by our excellent hospitals, and well trained doctors.
Additionally, 75% of Americans are happy with their healthcare how it is. This decline of standards
would include having possibly fatal wait times. In Great Britain, between 2001 and 2006 the median
wait time was 44 to 51 days for hospital admission only after the decision to admit the patient had been
made. This including a 8 month wait for cataract surgery, 11 month wait for hip surgery, and 5 months
for hernias. Oh, and childbirth is pretty urgent, right? In 2007, hospitals had to turn away 42% of
women in labor due to the maternity wards being full. Nearly 10,000 Britains die unnecessarily from
cancer each year because of healthcare rationalizing, if we keep up this Obamacare movement, our own
United States will have the same statistics.
One of our most honored documents is even against this. Article 1 section 8 of the constitution
states that enforcing this act of granting “free healthcare” is illegal in America. It is our own personal
duty to provide ourselves with that care, not the government's. With that kind of control, the
government can limit your right to healthcare due to age. Lets say your grandmother was in the hospital
because she fell and broke her hip, and a small child came in for a broken arm. Well we know who is
more fragile, but according to the government, the older you are, the less rights to healthcare you have.
Your grandmother wouldn't get that needed hip surgery, all because the government decided that the
healthy 12 year old needs a little green cast. Say goodbye to grandma.
Getting “Obama care” enforced, would tear down the great medical care we have now in our
great country. It would only make matters worse. All those taxes for this so-called “free” healthcare,
would actually influence even more poverty in our country as a whole. Paul Ryan, a member of the
U.S. House of Representatives, said it best, “Under the terms of our Constitution, every individual has
a right to care for their health, just as they have a right to eat. These rights are integral to our natural
right to life—and it is government's chief purpose to secure our natural rights. But the right to care for
one's health does not imply that government must provide health care, any more than our right to eat, in
order to live, requires government to own the farms and raise the crops.” We can always improve on
what we have, but the government is not the answer.