You’re missing the point; we don’t want poor people to have health insurance

By A rich guy

The debate about health care reform goes all the way back to the Truman Administration, and Barack Obama has recently received praise for bridging the gap between liberals and conservatives through the introduction of a plan that would put the government into the health insurance industry as a competitor with private insurers that often operate as local monopolies. The problem with Obama’s so-called “compromise” is that it misses the point- opponents of universal health care do not really care about the distinctions between a single-payer system and a government-participant system; we just don’t want poor people to have access to health care. Think about it: if poor people have health insurance, they will live longer and put more of a drain on the system that I support.

What’s worse is that the health care system would have to support even more people than it already does. I went to the emergency room with a sprained ankle and had to wait amidst that sea of humanity for almost three hours before I could get in for an x-ray with the overworked ER nurse. In just that amount of time, two people came in with gunshot wounds and got to go to the front of the line. How is that fair? Would I get to go to the front of the line at a restaurant if I came in with a gunshot wound? I put in my time, and they cut in ahead of me because they are stupid enough to get shot. Imagine the indignity of waiting in line behind a poor person with a serious injury? That scenario alone should give pause to anyone considering universal health care a legitimate option.

It’s simple math, rich people are worth more to the world than poor people, so giving them the same health care options flies in the face of the American ideal. I make a six-figure salary every year, I pay my taxes, and I contribute to society. Poor people watch stock car racing and hunt. They don’t add anything to society; they just use the services that I pay for. I’m productive, damnit, I shouldn’t be subjected to funding any more welfare programs.

New studies by the Congressional Budget Office say that extending health care would offer universal coverage for a 4% cost increase over the next decade. I say that’s 4% too much to spend on the poor. It should go to more sub-prime mortgages for me to buy up and insurance on my yacht.

[LEFT- Poor people dreaming up new ways to hurt themselves and make me pay for it.]

I don’t care if it’s a single payer system, a public-private competition, or just an expansion of Medicare and Medicaid. As soon as I hear the words “universal healthcare,” I can’t help but thinking about 80-year old trailer trash grilling up chicken fingers, cluttering the newspaper’s editorial pages with letters to the editor whining about leash laws for their Dobermans, and wasting my FICA Social Security contribution on Busch Light and camouflage pants. Obama says he wants this waste-of-space to have access to the life-saving chemotherapy procedures he needs to cure his chaw-induced throat cancer. I say: why?

The New York Times recently described a health cooperative outside of Seattle as a model for the 21st century style of health care institution. I swear on my mother’s grave that I would rather die than have some tie-dyed burnout telling me to do acupuncture for my kidney stones and prescribing medicinal marijuana for my wife’s postpartum depression.

I remember years ago when my doctor would make house calls; those were the days. Back then, you never had to wait in line to see a doctor, and you never had to worry about poor people jumping in front of you because they started a firefight in the alley behind a bombed-out row house. Indeed, we’re all better off with the current system, at least those of us who matter.