Commentary On The Article 'Obamacare'

Nick-O-Las
Reading this article, I was at first confused as to what the author was complaining about. As I kept reading I began to understand that the author was angry with the people who opposed the governments healthcare plan or as he called it, “Obamacare”. The author kept on giving examples of opponents who would just twist the information about the healthcare reform to make it seem like it was a bad thing and one that would scare Americans from wanting the government to provide healthcare. The author said opponents would keep using scare tactics and misinformation to mislead the public. One point that I thought was his strongest about how the people against Obamacare would manipulate the information was when gave the example of the British healthcare. He cited how opponents said Britain’s government chose who was worthy of treatment and who was not. But the opponents got the information wrong because the government doesn’t decide anything. It just stops people from paying for treatments and surgeries that have no proof of working. They simply don’t want people wasting money on unnecessary treatments so the money is saved for things worth getting. I thought this was a great point in that he showed how people who misinterpret information can make something that is working to the
betterment of its people look bad. Towards the end he gives the example of a man at a town hall meeting yelling passionately about how he wants to keep the Governments hands off his Medicare. I laughed when I continued to read that the U.S. government runs the Medicare system. It’s crazy to think there are people in this country that doesn’t want everyone to have healthcare.
As someone who wasn’t born in the United States, my perspective is different from many Americans. My country and a lot of other countries back in Europe have a health care system that is run by the government. Trying to understand how the health care system runs here in the United States was a little overwhelming and hard for me to wrap my head around. I simply don’t understand why you can’t walk into a hospital and get the help you need. Back home, our health care system isn’t great but it is there for us. Sometimes the service is a little slow but I know that if I go into a hospital back home because I’m injured, that I won’t come out with a medical bill that is going to make me go bankrupt. Or, that I’ll have to work through an injury just because I can’t afford to go to the doctors to see what’s wrong. I think it’s crazy that I have friends here who can’t or won’t go to the doctors because they don’t have insurance even though they really need to. What is even more stunning to me is that I even know people who have insurance and are injured but when they go into to get the help they need, the insurance company tells them they won’t cover the surgery.
I think, “then what the hell are they paying them for?” It makes no sense for someone to pay a company thousands of dollars every year for something that they can’t even use when they need to use it. It is, for lack of a better term, stupid. To me, that is like throwing your money away or putting it into a bank and then when you go make a withdrawal, they say that you cannot get it. It is and idiotic system and one that I am glad I do not have to deal with back in my
country. Honestly, I hope that Obama is able to pass this healthcare reform because they need to. The United States is the most powerful country in the world and it is one I see as a leader in the world. Yet, in a country so powerful, I know hundreds of students, friends and family members who can’t go to the hospital and are scared to even get sick. It is a sad situation and one I hope will change soon. If Serbia can have Government healthcare, the U.S. can too.