Healthcare Reform

I'm not buying it. I've been a socialist since the day I was born, and I just plain am not buying this crap.

Now... the United States is one of the most backwards countries in the world (admittedly, there are POCKETS of backward-ness throughout the country). I was watching Religulous last night (it was a great film, I definitely recommend it, but more on that later) and Bill Maher said that the U.S. is one of the most profoundly religious countries in the developed world (on a list of thirty of so developed nations, we rank right before Turkey, which is the "most religious" "developed" nation). We're still shoving religion down everyones' throats, including our own country-men.

So tell me why the Catholic Church has such a big hand in this Healthcare Reform (oh, and why the Catholic Church has the right to send millions of dollars in the effort to make sure that I don't get my rights?). Don't we hate the Catholic Church? Wasn't that the biggest issue in electing JFK, that he was a Catholic? His allegiance is to the Pope, not to our country.

Sometimes it makes my head spin.

My cousin is a neo-con (*puke*), and he's just about the scariest person I've ever met in my life. He's always battling me over facebook status etc. saying that Obama is a communist, a marxist, a socialist (because those words OBVIOUSLY scare me?) and that Healthcare reform will be the END of our great nation.

No... it won't. In fact, it would be AWESOME. Yes, please, for the love of God, REFORM THE SH*T out of healthcare. Reform it till it can't be reformed anymore. Then maybe people wouldn't have to die from treatable conditions. Then maybe people with conditions (for example, chronic asthma, of which I am a sufferer) wouldn't be denied healthcare due to a pre-existing condition. I can't help that I live in the U.S. and my industrial nation gave me asthma as a youngster.

I also can't help wanting to just grab naysayers and take them to Canada, or the UK, or ANY of the Scandinavian countries, etc. and show them what a country with universal healthcare looks like. It is r.e.a.l.l.y. OK.

I have a feeling this is going to be the start of a new "red-scare" if this Healthcare reform doesn't pass.

And if it passes with the abortion measure, well, welcome back to the 1950's and 60's of back ally abortions and coat-hangers. We never liked our women that much anyway.

This whole argument about "well I don't want my children to have to pay for someone else's healthcare" sounds a lot like classism to me.

I have private healthcare (care of my mother) and when I graduate college, I'll need a job with benefits or a spouse with a job with benefits (or both!). I can honestly say that whatever needs to be done to fix the compeletely messed up (and murderous) insurance industry, needs to be done. Increase taxes (let's start with the upper "class" though), do whatever needs to be done. Just make sure that no more innocent lives are lost simply because they can't afford it. They're Americans too, they're human beings too, and they MATTER. We all MATTER, and in the end, that is what this whole argument boils down to.