Actually, the title and picture should be from Logan's Run, but that particular film lacks any snappy catchphrases instantly recognizeable to the general populace.
Both books/films, are of course dystopic Science Fiction about a future where the world, well, ok, the US, is vastly over-crowded, lacking resources, and the old are expendable. In Soylent Green older folks are encouraged to "Go Home," which is an euphimism for committing assisted suicide in calm, soothing death chambers, and the hero discovers that the corpses from these centers are made into "Soylent Green," a food product distributed to the masses.
In Logan's Run, people are "renewed," i.e. killed at a certain age (21 in the book, 30 in the film) to make room for the vastly overcrowded population inside the domed city in which it takes place. In the book, the hero and heroine flee to "Sanctuary" a colony near Mars, and in the film, they destroy the computer that regulates everything and lead the populace out of the domed cities into the now safe to live in world.
Why do I bring up these two books/films? Well, one of the wingnut arguments against health care/insurance reform is that it will wind up killing old people (depending on who you listen to, in order to pay for abortions, sex changes... take your pick). Ummm, yeah... I think these folks, much like the Bush Administration's inability to see Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale as a work of fiction instead of a set of instructions for dealing with uppity bitches, watch too many bad movies and have a problem distinguishing fantasy from reality.
Thing the first: Medicaid and Medicare, upon which many elderly people already depend, are government funded and run programs. Yes, they are, protestor who yelled, "Keep your government out of my Medicare!" (I'll dig up a link if you really want.) Basically, as I understand it, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, the super simple short explanation of what health care reform is going to do is extend those benefits to all un/under-insured people.
Having spent a fair chunk of my adult life uninsured while going to grad school, I am all for Health Care/Insurance Reform even though I currently DO have health insurance. In fact I have damn good health insurance, but if the rates keep going up like they have been, I'm not going to be able to afford this level of coverage much longer, all while staying in the same job that allowed me to have it in the first place.
I am fortunate enough to live in a state that mostly doesn't let insurance companies get away with that "pre-existing condition" bullshit, or I could be seriously fucked. I've been asthmatic since I was nine years old, due to a childhood bout of pneumonia and probably living in a really polluted region. The inhaler I use to keep breathing costs me $60 a month with my insurance coverage. Without it? $160. That's $160 a month to do something as frivolous as breathing. That's just the one inhaler, I also have a rescue inhaler that runs about $30 a month with insurance. However, I have no other serious health issues. My joints are a little banged up from years of sports and weight-lifting, but nothing major. At least, not yet.
That said, there is one test I probably should get, that I won't: the test for the DNA marker for breast cancer heritability. My maternal grandmother and most if not all of her sisters have had breast and/or uterine or ovarian cancer. Reason dictates that I should find out if I have that genetic marker. Reason, however, also dictates that I never give my insurance a reason to refuse to cover any potential future cancer treatments by letting them deem it a "pre-existing" condition.
Having lived without health insurance, I know exactly how very much it sucks to NOT be able to get even small health issues taken care of in a timely manner, if at all. It sucks to have to splint your own broken finger or toe because you know you can't afford the emergency room, to hobble around on a sprained ankle or keep using a limb with a hairline fracture because you just can't afford to get it taken care of.* I have a lifelong background dealing with sports-related injuries to bolster my first aid training, and I've done a fair amount of triage for friends and family with no insurance. It is amazing the sheer amount of pain people will put themselves through in order to avoid going in to debt with health care, debt which can be crippling and is the most prevalent reason people declare bankruptcy.
That's right, the #1 reason that people declare bankruptcy is medical bills. It's not living beyond their means, it's health care. It's trying to keep a child, spouse, loved one, family member, themselves alive.
How fucking frivolous. /sarcasm
*I have also done some or all of these things WITH insurance because I could not untangle the byzantine regulations concerning which emergency rooms my insurance would cover, which doctors IN those emergency rooms, which procedures... It just seemed easiest to man up and take care of it myself the best I could. At least until my regular doctor could see me, IF they could see me.
Mickey Schulz is a guest author for the California NOW blog; her opinions are not necessarily those of California NOW. Copyright Mickey Schulz, with permission granted to California NOW for use on this site.
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