Bowden Blogs

Boooo! Isn’t that what we Americans say about things we don’t like?

I watched the documentary SiCKO tonight and although it didn’t actually tell me anything that I wasn’t already somewhat aware of it still seemed to have profound affect on me. There is something to be said about acknowledging in your mind that something is true and actually seeing it at work. This film made me cry so much. I felt so much pain for the people in the film and also understood their fear, seeing as my family is one of the some odd millions of people in the United States that do not have any health coverage.

At this point I don’t really care how unpatriotic this sounds…but the United States really SUCKS sometimes. The only people that could possibly defend the state of our health coverage at this point are people that are getting financial gains from a corrupt system, people with what they deem “good” insurance that haven’t had the opportunity to be royally screwed by their insurance company…YET! and then people that just don’t know any better. Sounds pretty harsh but sometimes the truth is harsh.

However at this point health coverage is not my only beef with America because it is hardly the one area that we are seriously lacking in. Our nation is built around keeping people as uneducated, unhealthy, and subservient as possible. What other reason would we have for making it so difficult for our children to receive a good education. Government school systems are so lacking that most children leave them with barely even a mediocre education and then we make the financial possibility for our children to receive a college education near impossible. Well, not if you have good credit. All you have to do is sign over your future for the promise of a brighter one with the bonus of thousands of dollars of debt, which I can assure you my family is well aware of because of what my husbands schooling has cost us.

Now I am just rambling…..because I am irritated…..so lets move on to some fun facts!

- The amount of uninsured is rising every year, as premiums continue to skyrocket and wages stagnate. From 2004 to 2005 the number of uninsured rose 1.3 million, and rose up nearly 6 million from 2001-2005.

- According to the Institute of Medicine, “lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States. Although America leads the world in spending on health care, it is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not ensure that all citizens have coverage.”

- “The U. S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance, the report finds.”

- In a study of older Americans and Brits, the Brits had less of almost every major disease. Even the poorest Brit can expect to live longer than the richest American.

- A baby born in El Salvador has a better chance of surviving than a baby born in Detroit.

- The government initially refused to pay for the health care of 9/11 volunteers, because they were not on the government payroll. It remains difficult for the volunteers to access the $50 million fund that has been appropriated for their care.

Wasn’t that fun?

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Posted in: Homeschooling, Politics, Society At Large

Tags: Politics

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 10th, 2008 at 10:30 pm and is filed under Homeschooling, Politics, Society At Large. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.