Health Care Concerns Not Highest Concerns in Poll
We have a lot of problems, but I was mildly surprised that health care only scored in at 60 percentile as a matter of high concern to the American people in a Pew Poll, with Medicare at 59%--a sharp decline from previous samples. And this was a surprise: Health insurance was at 52%. From the story:
Of the 20 issues people were asked to rate in both January 2008 and January 2009, five have slipped significantly in importance as attention to the economy has surged. Protecting the environment fell the most precipitously-- just 41% rate this as a top priority today, down from 56% a year ago. The percentage rating illegal immigration as a top priority has fallen from 51% to 41% over the past year, and reducing crime has fallen by a similar amount (from 54% to 46%). And while reducing health care costs remains a top priority to 59% of Americans, this is down 10-points from 69% one year ago.The economy and jobs were top, natch, with concerns in the 80s. Terrorism came in at 76%--glad to see people still care, while moral decline a mere 45%: It would have been higher for me. And despite all the hysteria, the common sense of the American people shined through: Global warming came in at only 30%.
Labels: Pew Poll. Health Care.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:15 PM
5 Comments
5 Comments:
Not all that surprising in the USA, where most people's health insurance is dependent on their employment, or in the case of the self-employed, on the prosperity of their business.
The problem with our system is that once you lose your job or business, you also lose your health care. In most cases your children do also, of course.
Here's hoping whatever the new regime comes up with can provide a better safety net without being flooded by employees being dumped by cost-cutting employers.
Yes it was heartwarming that global warming wasn't at the top of the list (where in my opinion terrorism should be first and moral decline should be a close second), and at least moral decline got 45 per cent. Padraig makes a good point here. As I see it, economy also is at the top of the list because material values override everything here, which accounts for the prevalence of utilitarianism and "futile care theory."
I do not believe in health insurance to start with; insurance is a fear-based and self-serving industry that has helped to destroy medicine, turn it from a profession into a business, and drive up costs. It's everyone "having" to have health insurance that has turned people into sheep who accept the way things are. It's no one's business -- not the government's, not one's employer's, no one's -- how one handles one's own medical care and pays for it; part of the moral decline that has occurred is people no longer expecting to have to stand on their own two feet. Medical care would not be nearly as expensive without the costs the involvement of the insurance industry causes. Many take "benefits" into consideration when choosing jobs, rather than making the job itself their first priority, and that is part of how things have unravelled. At the same time, people have taken up the habit of buying lottery tickets as well. Health care shouldn't even be an issue, and it is one only because fundamental things that aren't even mentioned and addressed as the cause of the problem are the cause of the problem.
Well if they're in moral decline they wouldn't consider it a problem, because they don't even know they're in it and that it's a problem.
Also, many people don't need health care most of the time, whereas the economy is always of concern to them as to everyone else. I think a lot of the "health care crisis" -- the part that gets touted constantly, as opposed to what's really wrong -- is propaganda by insurance companies and health care corporations that can't make as much money with not everyone carrying insurance as they can if everyone carries insurance, and thus we are always hearing about the "plight" of the "large percentage of uninsured." Of course that's a problem for many who are uninsured, because of the way the "health care system" is set up, but the insurance companies and health care corporations are less concerned about them than they are about their own profits, and they don't care where the money comes from; if they keep things difficult enough for those who have to struggle to pay insurance premiums and for those who are uninsured, they get those groups, and politicians, on their side, clamoring for "a better system" and "universal health care" without really realizing, or at least caring, what the real game is. As long as people are kept afraid of not having health insurance, the insurance companies are in control. Hillary Clinton's "health care reforms" ended up benefitting only the insurance companies, and with more stringent laws concerning health care financial fraud, benefitting, again, the insurance companies. Bush's stance on tort reform did likewise, and I wonder how he and many others who support the idea of tort reform would think about the issue if they had ever been the victims of medical malpractice themselves. Now we've got another one in the White House who is upside-down on the whole issue of health care, whether he means to be or not. Meanwhile, people keep swallowing the propaganda. That was a really good idea that was expressed in this forum about an underground, grass-roots, network of health care outside of "the medical establishment." This new President, of all people, should appreciate the efficacy of grass-roots movements (though his planets tell me that there was a lot more big money behind him than the rhetoric about his "grass-roots" campaign suggests), and in any event, there are enough people uninsured now to start turning the tide in that direction -- if only the propaganda would stop, or they'd stop listening to it.
Plus all the ones about to lose health insurance benefits, struggling to pay premiums now, etc. It's just a matter of those who now work within the health care establishment, and can see that things aren't right and are fed up with it, waking up and taking a walk, and those who need them rallying to their side. Public attention needs to be grabbed and people have to start waking up and start using their heads and their ingenuity, and stop feeling helpless and dependent on the current medical establishment that is out of line.
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