Neighborhood Ministries

If the goal of health care for everyone is allowed to be fully implemented, the cost will be unthinkable. Before Obamacare, Medicare and Medicaid were already straining the federal budget. As a result of the increased cost of insurance, far more people could not afford insurance, so it ended up covering far more people than they originally stated it would. Yet, there are still many on private plans. If they are added, it will greatly increase costs. In addition, without competition, there will be no reason to keep health care costs down. The drain on our health care system will force it to become selective in who they help, just as it has in Canada and in Europe, who already have universal health care. Medical care must be approved by a government panel which determines if it is cost effective. The elderly and disabled would be the first to suffer because they don’t have economic value in our society. We are already seeing cuts in Medicare and Social Security payments. Government programs like Medicare and Medicaid already limit what services are available, because they are not considered cost effective. Yet, many of the disabled could work and support themselves if they could get help, but they are being shuttled into disability programs, which limit what work they can do. A great deal of the technology available to us today could help the disabled and enable them to work but is too costly for them because they can’t work without it. By providing them with a little help now, they could work and repay the expenditure many times over in their life time. Since companies charge the government far more than they charge private pay, many of the elderly could be helped far cheaper through private means then through government programs.

People cry about how many people don’t have health insurance and can’t get medical care. They think that all you have to do is mandate that everyone has to buy insurance and everyone will have insurance and get health care. That sounds simple but it ignores reality. It doesn’t say anything about where these people are going to get the money to pay for health insurance. Before people had to choose between having a roof over their head or medical insurance, but since medical insurance was mandated, many have been forced to give up a roof over their head in order to purchase medical insurance. President Obama claimed his health care plan would make insurance affordable but he ignored the law of supply and demand.  Previously, insurance companies had to hold down costs to try to get the most people to buy it but once it became mandatory to have insurance, there was no reason to keep costs low because people had to buy it regardless of how expensive it got.   As a result, many people saw their insurance premiums more than double. Health care costs doubled when Obamacare extended the health care plan to large numbers of those struggling to cover health care costs, due to benefits insurance companies were forced to add in compliance with federal mandates. Previously, imdividuals only purchased coverage they needed. There are far less expensive ways to provide everyone with affordable health care. (see Truly In The World But Not Of It-Part A under Health Care)

There are drugs to treat malaria which is similar to Covid that have been shown to save lives in critically ill people. They have been used for years and are very effective against malaria with few side effects. Granted, they haven’t been tested on Covid, but they treat the symptoms caused by malaria that kill people and aren’t specific to the malaria virus itself. Covid produces the same symptoms, and those drugs should be tried to see if they are effective in those with Covid. People with money and influence are getting those drugs to help them get well, but the man on the street doesn’t have access to them. When people are critically ill, they don’t have much to lose. They should be given the choice of being part of clinical studies if they want. If it will save lives, it is well worth the risk, and it could provide another weapon in our arsenal against Covid. If it isn’t totally effective, it may save some lives that would have died otherwise. It is far different from using a drug that is untested and is not known to be safe. I can see where people were afraid of the Covid vaccine because it hadn’t been intensively tested, I was too. However, it has now been used on millions of people with very little serious consequences, so I got vaccinated. While we should be protected from drugs that are not safe or don’t work, it seems like we are being too careful, and people are dying needlessly.

I am deeply disturbed by the political fighting over Covid and the greatly exaggerated claims and accusations over it. There are so many fake and false claims out there that it makes me sick. People need the facts but are to where many don’t believe anything they hear. I know there is a reluctance to use experimental treatments but when one is highly effective with no adverse side-effects, it should be considered. I had Polio at the age of two and was paralyzed from the waist down. Doctors said there wasn’t anything they could do but encase the legs in braces and give me crutches, since the muscles would shrivel from lack of use. A nurse in Australia however discovered that if you exercise the legs by hand to keep the muscles from shrinking (what we now call “physical therapy”), the nerves will eventually grow back and enable the person to walk again. My parents ignored the doctor’s advice and took me to a hospital where my mother was trained to exercise my legs and eventually, I was able to walk again. Had I been covered by Obamacare or any other government insurance, my parents might not have been able to get the alternate care because the treatment was considered experimental. In fact, the hospital where I went probably would not have been allowed to open. President Obama ordered all hospitals to submit a study showing they were needed where they were to eliminate duplicate services and hospitals like Shriner’s Hospital, the Mayo Clinic, St Jude’s Children’s Hospital, and others that do research and serve special needs would probably have been eliminated, feeling those patients could be treated in local hospitals.