Just a Little Rant About Health Insurance

So I was watching this movie that randomly came on TBS that had Chris Rock in it and it in some way had to do with health care and was funny so I decided to watch the movie. In the movie Chris Rock's character dies (on accident-it wasn't his time) so the angel of death puts him back into a old white guy's body. The part that related to health care was that the person who Chris Rock became was a hot shot working for some corporation, and he was giving a sales pitch about insurance. The line that made me laugh was when he says "they should really call insurance "in case shit happens" and if shit don't happen you should get your money back!".

 

 I just think that our system is so messed up in that people pay so much money into having health insurance, yet health insurance companies don't want to accept people they may actually end up having to pay money for. That seems really selfish to me that the companies are just out to get rich then to actually help sick people. Like I have mentioned many times both me and my older sister have "pre-existing" conditions that make us people insurance companies don't want to cover. Although changes have been made to keep insurance companies from refusing to cover patients with pre-existing conditions,  I think these companies are still going to find ways around having to cover people that they ACTUALLY might have to cover. This really bothers me because although I agree that health care is pricy if I am willing to pay for the health care I think that I deserve to have to pay the same amount as other people and not be kept from being insured. Okay well that is my rant. Let me know what you think? 

Taking a Look at Nonattitudes and Insincerity

In my Public Opinion class we have been discussing two issues that affect the accuracy of polls and those issues are Nonattitudes and Insincerity. Nonattitdues are when people who don't have an opinion on a topic answer as though they do. For example, when it comes to my topic if a person who didn't have any opinion on health care reform but answered saying they were in favor of it, that would be a nonattitude. I am not thinking that nonattitudes is something that is going to be a very big problem in my issue. Even if people are uninformed or misinformed people have opinions on health care and health care reform. Something that might cause a problem however is insincerity. Insincerity is when a person has an opinion about a topic, but gives a different opinion. For example, with my topic if I asked a person if they approved of Obama's health care bill and they said yes even though they did not then that is insincerity. This could be a problem because health care is very controversial and people might lie to protect their image so they do not come off as cold or uncaring. People might have the opinion that it is not their problem if others are not insured, but do not express this opinion because it might show them in a negative light.  Also healthcare seems to be something that is very political. For example (and this is not always true) people who consider themselves Republican tend to be against healthcare reform (or at least Obama's plan) and people who consider themselves Democratic tend to be in favor of serious healthcare reform. This might cause people who have differing opinions from their political party to lie so they don't go against their parties view. I am not sure if the polls that I have seen so far actually have problems with insincerity but I did notice a difference in the amount of people who believe that the United States health care system has serious problems and the amount of people who support Obama's health care reform plan. Many more people agreed that their were serious problems in the system, yet not as many supported Obama's plan. Do you think that this might be an example of insincerity? I'm not sure but it is a problem that needs to be looked at when addressing polls.

U.S. compared to other Developed Countries

So for this blog I am not posting more statistics about public opinion but rather talking a little about the research paper that I have to do regarding health care. Last semester I took a politics class titled Public Policy, and it compared United States public policy to other developed countries. One of the things that struck me as the most interesting was the comparison of our health care system to the other developed countries especially Europe. The United States is the only developed country that does not have universal health care, which I find to be really interesting. One of the main things for the research paper that I am going to be looking at is the public opinion of the United States and other countries when it comes to health care. Do people in countries that have universal health care have a positive opinion of it? What do they think about the United States not having universal health? Should the government be responsible for health care? These are all questions that I am very interested in finding out. I am still unsure on what my direct opinion on the matter is, because although I have reasons for wanting the government responsible for health care (kidney condition, and a sister with MS), I have also heard about the problems that come with universal health care. An example of a problem that I personally have seen with universal health care happened to my cousin who lives in England. My godfather Jimmy has been in kidney failure for over a year and was put on the waiting list for a kidney transplant. Waiting on the list for a kidney can take over 5 years so it is best to try and find a match in your family. His sister Janice, who lives in England, was a match and was willing to give him her kidney. Because England has universal health care the process of Janice being tested (there are lots and lots of steps that have to happen before you donate) took a very very long time that would have happened a lot faster if she was in America. So it is clear to me through this scenario and what I learned in my Public Policy class that both America's health care system as well as universal health care have its problems, and I am interested in learning more about which system has more benefits then flaws. Let me know what your opinions are on this. What do you think about America being the only developed country without universal health care?
Hope everyone had a good weekend.

State Of The Healthcare System

So I was looking back at my previous blogs and realized that I have showed what percent of the public thinks healthcare is the governments responsibility and what percent of the public is for or against Obama'a healthcare plan, but I realized I should also show the public's opinion on the actual healthcare system the U.S. has today. It would make sense that we would first have to see if the American public actually thinks the system is in trouble. 

According to Gallup this is the results when asked: Which of these statements do you think best describes the U.S. healthcare system today -- [ROTATED: it is in a state of crisis, it has major problems, it has minor problems, (or) it does not have any problems]?

As you can see from this poll the majority of people believe that the U.S. healthcare system has major problems at 50%. Not only do the majority of people think that the system is seriously flawed but only 2% believe that the system does not have any problems. Which goes to show that even if people are against Obama's healthcare plan, they do believe that something needs to be done to fix our healthcare system. Let me know what your opinions are on the topic. Do you agree that our healthcare system is in a state of crisis? If so what do you propose be done to correct it. 

	State of crisis	Major problems	Minor problems	Does not have any problems	No opinion
	%	%	%	%	%
2009 Nov 5-8	21	50	25	2	1
2009 Sep 11-13	17	56	25	2	*
2008 Nov 13-16	14	59	26	1	1
2007 Nov 11-14	17	56	24	2	1
2006 Nov 9-12	16	55	25	3	1
2005 Nov 7-10	18	52	28	1	1
2004 Nov 7-10	14	53	31	2	*
2003 Nov 3-5	14	54	30	1	1
2002 Nov 11-14	11	54	32	2	1
2001 Nov 8-11	5	44	47	2	2
2000 Sep 11-13	12	58	28	1	1
1994 Sep 6-7 ^	17	52	29	1	1
* Less than 0.5%
^ WORDING: Which of these statements do you think best describes the U.S. healthcare system today -- the healthcare system is in a state of crisis, it has major problems, it has minor problems, or it does not have any problems? Hope this blog opened some eyes to the fact that Americans almost all agree that the system is flawed.....the debate comes in on the way to go about fixing it.