As Governor of Alaska, I learned a little bit about being a
target for frivolous suits and complaints (Please, do I really need to footnote that?). I went my whole life without needing a lawyer on speed-dial, but all that changes when you become a target for opportunists and people with no scruples. Our nation’s health care providers have been the targets of similar opportunists for years, and they too have found themselves subjected to false, frivolous, and baseless claims.Her ghostwriter is getting better at making her notes sound more personal.
As for her ideas on healthcare reform, I'm past trying to make sense of all the drivel. There seems to be a lot of jumping from one thing to the next. I'm not terribly familiar with healthcare insurance in the US, but looking from the outside, I get the impression the big insurance companies are feeding $arah's team some talking points and they run with them. Sarah Palin's notes may have a personal touch, but the message is still toxic.
I have lived most of my life in a country with national health insurance. When you're in work, a certain percentage of your pay is deducted each month and your employer also makes a contribution. The money goes into a big pot and EVERYBODY gets healthcare, whether they work or not. Children and seniors included. The children are still to make their contribution, the seniors have contributed all their lives.
Certain consultations and treatments have a small price tag, but children, seniors, pregnant women, the disabled and the unemployed are exempt from payment. Which means you NEVER have to remortgage your home in order to receive healthcare. And you never have to go without.
Rich people prefer to purchase private healthcare insurance or simply pay hospital bills. It's their prerogative. Rich people have choices. Some employers offer private insurance as a perk, but the employee is then taxed for it.My husband had such a perk and it was the ONLY time we had to face rationing of healthcare. In the NHS we had to face some delay having exams performed, but urgent procedures are treated as urgent, so no worries there.
I should add that going into a private hospital will ensure luxury, but not necessarily the best healthcare. The protocols for nursing care in the NHS are much more stringent than in private hospitals. I read about a woman who chose to give birth in the lap of luxury but died because she wasn't checked as often as she would in a NHS hospital. It has happened. If the same woman had been sharing a ward with six other patients she would have survived.
The difference between the NHS and private healthcare is that one is focused on care, the other on profits.
The NHS is far from perfect and also needs some reform, but people don't get turned away because they can't pay or because they don't have insurance. The doctors and the nurses in this "evil" system will pull all stops to save the lives of anybody who comes to them.
Healthcare is a basic need, just as food and shelter, and it's very hard to believe that the largest economy in the Western world has a rationing system based on ability to pay.It's the ugly face of capitalism. Capitalism without compassion, without humanity, THAT is evil.
.
