I've been reading this book called "All Souls" about a family in the projects of Boston. They lived in several of the projects, but mostly Southie. At one point, the mother took her sick, 3 week old baby into the hospital. She didn't have any insurance, and medicaid hadn't been legislated yet. They told her they'd reached their quota of 'charity cases' for the day and wouldn't help her. Her baby died that night of pneumonia. The doctor that saw the baby after it passed away said that it should have been in the hospital.
And that's when I realized that I believe health care is a right, not just a privilege.
I like the idea of making health insurance mandatory, though it can't be the only solution applied. This idea is often compared to auto insurance, which is also mandatory. People only have to have auto insurance if they want to drive, so there is still a choice. It doesn't make any sense to allow people to opt out of health insurance because they cannot choose to not get sick or injured. Everybody will need a doctor at some point, and we need to have an organized plan for providing it.
I'm glad that the health-care bill passed. I look forward to adjustments and improvements to that legislation as time goes by. I'm glad that women won't be as discriminated against by the health insurance industry as a result of this bill. I felt like the whole country was being held hostage by the minority republican senate. They wouldn't even allow a vote on health care, even though the biggest facets of the bill were republican ideas from the '90s. I wish that the legislative branch had allowed the process to work normally (I continue to wish that as around 80 presidential nominees for administrative positions throughout government continue to be on hold because of these same republicans), but I'm glad that the democrats found a mechanism to push forward this important legislation.
