Everyone should have free health care

Yep. I said it. Even people I don’t like.

I’m writing this with an insane toothache.

My shoulders hurt. My neck is stiff. My jaw is tight. My right eyeball feels like it’s going to fall out. My stress is high, and my tooth hurts every time my tongue grazes it and has been throbbing all day. I got behind on my regimen of Tylenol and Ibuprofen, so here I am, barely able to concentrate on the paragraph I’m working on.

I’m lucky to have very good medical care that comes with dental. I pay 20% of the costs along with a co-pay, so it means the root canal I will get tomorrow and the subsequent crown is still unaffordable for most graduate students, but it not astronomical. If I didn’t have that coverage, the two or three root canals and several cavities I’ve had in the last three years, along with other medical bills, would have made life very difficult.

Even so, I think health care should be free for everyone. Why not?

We are all already paying for it in one way or another.

It’s only that most of us are not receiving it, and when we receive it, we don’t receive it equitably. I think it should be comprehensive — preventive and acute.

Long ago during lunch with a supervisor in the private sector, we discussed what it would be like to pay 45% in taxes if we were guaranteed everyone could have free access to healthcare, housing, food, and education. “You mean you would give up your chance to be rich?” he asked? [logic problems here we don’t need to get into]

“Herb,” I replied, “When exactly were you planning on getting rich? What is your current tax liability, and what are you getting for it?”

Hell yes, I would. Even if you take out the human equation and look at it with pure numbers in mind, it makes all the sense in the world to become smarter and well-cared for human beings.

“But, what about all the problems?” [Are we talking about bread lines because nobody will be motivated to work?]

Sorry, we don’t have problems now?

Many of us are convinced that free healthcare would equate to a “handout.” Money coming directly out of our pockets into another undeserving person’s.

BUT IT ISN’T FREE, you will argue.

For those of you who would make that argument, I have something to tell you, and I don’t want you to take this the wrong way:

You are right.

It is happening already to all of us, and we are all getting screwed.

Instead of insisting that my level of care be lowered to meet someone else’s opinion of how much I deserve, why don’t we insist that all of our care being raised based on the fact that we are human beings? But if you can’t handle that human being idea, how about because it would be better for you, personally?

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