Summary Of Water By Wendy Reid

As soon as I started reading, Reid was able to get my attention and engage me into his final chapters. Using the fictional examples of Wendy and Juanita I was able to get a better understanding of what many Americans go through when they don’t have access to insurance. Wendy and Juanita had one thing in common, they both had ovarian cancer. Unfortunately, Wendy was able to get treated and Juanita wasn’t. What was the reason for this? Wendy had insurance and Juanita didn’t. Although these women are fictional, Reid presented the truth that many citizens face. Without access to affordable health care, many people die. As blunt as that may sound, it’s the truth. Reid related this to the idea that although American’s may have the right to protection
To be exact, 18,314 Americans die annually without insurance. If that’s not disturbing, I don’t know what is. America, as a society, could have saved 18,314 lives by implementing a universal health care system. This directly relates back to Nikki White, who was brought up on page 1 of the book. She is not a fictional character, she is a real woman who died at age thirty two from Lupus, which could have been treated. I find it interesting that “free” medical care only comes when you’re on your deathbed. While many countries have revamped their health care system, America falls behind once again. We as Americans have many rights, but health care is definitely not one of
I think that if the U.S. was ever able to change its health care system to universal health, we would benefit by adopting this practice in order to prevent bankruptcy. Reid returns to the problems of America’s health care regarding the cost, coverage, and quality on page 226 where he emphasizes the idea that they can be changed. Most importantly, many Americans are blind to the terrible health care system that they have. They try to cover it up with myths about health care overseas. Reid touches on five myths that Americans have which include topics such as everyone having socialized medicine, rationing care and limited choices, bloated bureaucracies, cruel acts of health insurance companies, and describing other systems as being too foreign. What they don’t realize is right in front of their eyes, all of these things happen in the U.S. I think that there is a bit of ethnocentrism here, where Americans are bias to other countries’ practices based on the framework of their