Sun Sep 25, 2011 at 07:07 AM PDT
The glory of a health care system free from governmentby gjohnsit
I was visiting one of my project partners today.
She has two daughters, the youngest of them 6 years old. While we were talking the girl from next door, about the same age, came over to play with the daughter.
I couldn't help but notice the fresh dime-sized scabs and scars all over her lower legs. It was some sort of skin disease.
What is it from? No one knows. Has the mother seen a doctor about it? No. Why not? No tiene dinero.
It's as simple as that. This is the Dominican Republic. This is a third-world country. There is no real public health care system. It is almost totally private, and thus inaccessible to most of the population...
SNIP
...I live about 100 yards away from a small, local hospital. I hadn't gone into it until two weeks ago, when the father of my host family contracted influenza.
He ended up in the hospital, hooked up to an IV.
The day after he was admitted, his wife showed up at my door. She needed a bucket of water. Why? Because the hospital didn't have any water to bath him with.
Needless to say, the hospital also doesn't provide food. Families do that too...
SNIP
...This is what a health care system looks like without government "interference". It isn't efficient. It isn't pretty. It isn't fair.
If the Tea-Party Republicans get their way in getting the government out of health care, this is what it will probably look like.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/25/1019943/-The-glory-of-a-health-care-system-free-from-government?via=siderec