Prioritize Healthcare

    It’s ironic that your Chevy means more to the U.S. than your life does.

    It’s funny that you are mandated to have car insurance in Virginia, yet you are allowed to be exposed to the risks of bankruptcy, debt, and death while uninsured. Forty-five million Americans are without health insurance. Let me put that in numbers for emphasis: 45,000,000 Americans.

    The U.S. budget system is severely flawed. Sure, it’s a democracy and we vote for our elected officials, but how many people would vote for $481 billion out of our $930 billion budget to be allotted to the Department of Defense? That is, excluding the $34.3 billion requested to be spent on the Department of Homeland Security in the year 2008.

    The amount requested to be spent on the Department of Defense is actually more money than requested for every other department in the government combined. Healthcare gets 412 billion dollars less than the Department of Defense.  That is inexcusable, for the government to spend almost half a trillion dollars on weapons that could make the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs seem like firecrackers, but not splurge on our personal well-being. Way to prioritize, America.

    Some who oppose the thought of pro-universal healthcare would say that the quality of healthcare would decrease if free healthcare is provided to the public. I wonder, is the real reason that they are indifferent to the shortcomings of others? Or are they just unable to comprehend the economic benefits   of universal healthcare?

    Let us start with the first, albeit a far more ethical and less economical view. The opposing argument, argued by many, is akin to the statement: my life is more important than the lives of the less wealthy. Seriously, America? Are the voices of the rich, white senators, congressmen, insurance provider CEOs and lobbyists that loud that they drown out the shouts and yells of lower class America? Are these people really representing the general public?

    As blessed people of this nation, we are granted equality. Yet, in our system, the rich seem to be slightly “more equal” than the poor, because their lives are more taken care of than the rest.

    Now on to the latter. Granted insuring all uninsured Americans will cost the country $34-69 billion, estimated by the Institute of Medicine, and healthcare providers’ paychecks are likely to go down because of this. Due to our natural desire for money, of course, doctors will no longer be the most qualified.

    But, $65-130 billion is currently being lost because of the lack of healthcare, because the uninsured do not have access to doctors, prescriptions, or facilities, therefore shortening their lifespans, and disabling them from the workforce at a younger age. An unemployed, uninsured man contributes nothing to the economy.

    Let’s take both extremes: we would lose $69 billion by insuring them, yet gain $130 billion back. It doesn’t take an economist to recognize profit.

    It also doesn’t take an economist to see that the well-being of all Americans deserves a little more than 7 percent of our annual budget. Especially when being compared to the 55 percent wasted on unnecessary and endless wars overseas.