I am one of the supporters of health care reform. I am a college-educated twenty-something from Michigan; I have a bachelor's degree in History and Psychology, and a bachelor's degree in Secondary Education. Since I grew up about 40 minutes from the U.S.-Canadian border, I knew people who frequently made trips to Windsor for gambling at the casinos Detroit didn't have. I found out at a later age that they were going to Canada to get their prescriptions filled at a cheaper price, or find over-the-counter drugs in Windsor pharmacies that you would need a prescription for in Detroit. I didn't understand then why it made a difference whether they got their prescriptions in Windsor or Detroit because the drugs were the same. I thought it had to do with exchange rates.
I hold a full time job as a teaching assistant at a public school in suburban Oklahoma City, and I make less than ten dollars an hour doing it. Because I have astronomical student loan payments that take up more than a quarter of my salary, I cannot afford health insurance. My employer does offer a stipend to go towards the purchase of health care; incidentally, it's almost exactly the amount of one of my loan payments. I am not a charity case, but I live in constant fear of what might happen to me if something happens that requires medical treatment. So far, I've been able to get along with going to the free clinic in the city I live in. However, that's not always going to be able to take care of things.
But I digress. This blog is not to debate the health care issue. I will leave it to those people who get paid to debate on television and other forums. It's not to say that I'm not comfortable hosting debate on my blog; I certainly welcome educated, well thought out debate posts. But you know what they say: those who can't, teach, and that's exactly what I'm going to do.
A friend of mine who opposes health care reform told me, "Obama admits that he hasn't read the whole bill, it's over a thousand pages long." It made me think, "How many people who talk about the health care bill, from either side, have actually read the damn thing?" The purpose of this blog is to bring the health care bill to the masses. I'm going to go through every page of the health care bill and put it into words that the everyday American will understand. I will be the first to admit that I don't know everything there is to know about the actual health care bill. I'm having enough of a hard time finding the silly thing online so I can print it out. But what I can promise is that I will do my best to present the health care bill in the best way possible, and neutralize my own political tendencies. I'm not going to reflect on its contents, I'm just going to give out the information so that all who see this may make an educated decision about health care reform.
It is our responsibility, as citizens in a democracy, to become informed about issues so that we may make the best decisions when it comes to exercise our right to vote. It is also our responsibility to contact our representatives when we don't like what is going on in our country. However, how can our reps and senators accurately represent us and our best interests when we blindly accept what we see on the internet and hear on the television as facts, and tell them to vote based on that? I know not everyone has the reading level to absorb what's written in the health care bill, but that's what I'm here to do.
For reference, folks, I will be using several sources when it comes to researching health care reform. I am relying on the White House website, its associated websites, and the Library of Congress. I will also rely, to a small extent, on Wikipedia which breaks my own rule of never using Wikipedia as a reliable source for anything. In this instance, it will act as a springboard for ideas or a compass to direct me to other research sources. I'll try to avoid posting statistics because 30% of statistics are made up.
Please stay tuned and be patient while I find the health care bill and print it up.
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