Debt or Death - Why Is This Even a Choice?

Every single day, people in America, and probably some other countries around the world, have to make one of the toughest decisions of their lives that shouldn’t even be a choice. That decision is if they want to live and accumulate lifelong crippling debt, or die.

Access to procedures

One trip to the emergency department resulting in a procedure necessary to save a life can destroy a savings account, credit report, and the chance at a stress-free retirement. The sad part is we live in a world where we have to make this choice. We need - and I emphasize need - certain procedures to save our lives. We must find a way to put an end to this and allow everyone access to free life-saving procedures.

National priorities

I am sure most people would agree - the amount of profit insurance companies make at the cost of forcing us to abide by their rules on what procedures, medications, and other aspects of our care we are allowed to have despite what a physician wants us to have is insane.

Politicians need to recognize that we all deserve the chance to live and not have to make the choice of waiting to see if our chest pain is a heart attack or indigestion and risk death.

Personally, I think healthcare should be free or with a very minimal deductible for everyone like a lot of other countries have. I know this isn’t a unanimous thought amongst the public, but I hear a lot that healthcare costs a lot because bills aren’t paid by most people that don’t have insurance because they don’t have the money.

Benfitting the greater good

Imagine if the bill was always paid by the government. This would mean the cost would go down overall because every bill would be paid. I can look at a lot of things that the government spends money on that benefit a specialized population in society. This would benefit everyone. It only makes sense to take care of people and help to keep everyone alive longer.

I believe we need to find politicians that agree with what we need and will follow through with it. One thing I can’t stand is lobbyists. This is one practice that should be illegal. You should not be able to essentially buy a politician’s vote because you have the most money. I can’t bribe a cop to not give me a ticket, but they can bribe politicians to vote a certain way. Makes no sense.

Holding health hostage

Capitalism is a great thing in most aspects. Profiting off of people being sick should not be something we allow or any company should be proud of. If we have to have insurance companies, at least force them to be non-profit. When the pandemic started, they were cracking down on people buying hand sanitizer and selling it at outrageous prices. Just as this is illegal, so should the sale of our health.

Wouldn’t you agree that insurance companies and hospitals have essentially purchased our health, and hold it hostage to sell back to us for an outrageous price tag?