Day 12 of quarantine.

Day 142 of student voice

Student voice provided by Emyly and Raphael

Emyly

Today I walked and walked and walked. I ended up walking 5 miles. I also walked to my friends house. Don’t worry I kept my distance from people. I also walked to my favorite “secret” lake. It was so nice to distract myself. But I’m checking my doc and Mr. Heintz’s comments made me think. I see so many problems in how so many people are handling this situation. Healthcare is one of them. Mr. Heintz shared a great thread that has so many examples of flaws in the United States healthcare system. Out of the 195 countries that exist only 43 DO NOT have free/universal healthcare, and guess what? The great land of the free is one of them.

Yes one of the “greatest” countries in the world the U.S doesn’t help its people when they usually need it most. This isn’t just a corona problem this is a problem that has always existed. In the year 2015 military spending was projected to account for 54% of all federal discretionary spending. For those who don’t know discretionary spending is a portion of the budget that the president requests and congress approves every year. It usually only represents about one third of the total federal budget. To elaborate on my example from 2015 healthcare only got 6% of the total 1.11 trillion dollars that year.

 

 

There would be so many benefits from free healthcare. Norway is one of the healthiest countries in the world. They were also the first ones to introduce free healthcare in 1912. We all know the greatest killer everywhere in the world is heart disease. Norway from the years 2007-2017 managed to drop ischemic heart disease related deaths by 16.5% and stroke related deaths by 12.8%. I mean the evidence of all the benefits of this is everywhere. But yet we Americans have to pay $7 for a single band aid during a hospital visit. It’s infuriating but I have no power to do anything. This is an issue especially with current events. Recently a lady from Boston was having corona-like symptoms and they got so bad she had to go to the hospital. She got treated, tested, and sent back home to recover as most corona patients are doing. Shortly after she received her test results and it was corona. She also received a hospital bill for the treatment and testing that was $34,927.43. This woman is uninsured and was recently about to move to Washington to start a new job. I mean I don’t know about you but I don’t know any people that just have that type of money laying around.

But the people that do have the money are the ones usually opposed to free healthcare. Why? Well because they care more about their pockets than the general well being. It’s infuriating and disappointing but that’s the country we live in. Hopefully changes are made soon. Maybe this outbreak can be an eye opener for many.
Raphael