The Box Pie

So I was talking with my grandfather who is 68 and I asked him about public health care. I’m very neutral about public health care because I know that it helps the poor and hurts the middle class by spreading the available health care between the two. So it has benefits and drawbacks and so does private health care. So anyways, I asked my grandfather and I wasn’t expecting much of an answer from a 68 year old man who I thought didn’t keep up with the world anymore. I had sorely underestimated my grandfather ability to think and generate a proper argument. I knew he was opposed to the idea because he is Hispanic and had lived under communism in Cuba for a few years before immigrating to Florida. But his opinion was not based on a blind fear of communism but a reasonable assertion from his experience here in America.

Ok so this is what he told me…(I’m translating from Spanish.)

When I arrived here in this country with your grandmother I did not have a single cent to my name. I was as poor and uneducated as a man could be and me and your grandmother had to support our 14 year old daughter(my aunt) and 15 year old son(my father). So we started working in a factory sewing shirts. I worked for minimum wage and your grandmother worked for a bit less than minimum wage. We sent your father and aunt to a public high school quickly secured for them a cheap health insurance plan through the school. Me and your grandmother signed up to a cheap local HMO plan which only paid for visits to one specific clinic in Hialeah. It was the only thing we could afford but we had decent health care. Your grandmother even had a cancerous ovary removed through this cheap HMO. So we had health care, food, water, and housing but not much else. The only holidays we would celebrate as a family was Thanksgiving(which we celebrated every year since we arrived in the United States), Christmas, and Easter.

In comparison, our neighbor was a well established immigrant who had been in the United States for ten years. He was a successful landlord and his wife ran a private busing service for school students. They had money and they loved to flaunt it. They would wear so much jewelry and throw a party every weekend with so much food and alcohol it made Dionysus jealous. So one day I asked them what kind of premium health care plan they had and was laughed at. He told me that he didn’t have any insurance because whenever he got sick he would head over to the Jackson Hospital and get his health care for free. I’ve lived a long time, and have met so many people just like this man who don’t understand the value of health insurance. People who take out loans for new cars, jewelry, and irresponsible debauchery.

It is for these irresponsible people that the federal government needed to establish a public health care system. These people need 10% of their income taxed away so that they don’t spend it on rubbish that they don’t need. Under the public health care system I am the one who will suffer because I am responsible enough to know that health insurance is important. Now I will not be able to afford a private health insurance to see a private doctor because I don’t make enough money. So now my health care has to suffer because the government is going to spread a limited amount of doctor manhours among more people. I don’t like this new health care plan  because I know there are people out there who can afford health care but need the government to hold their hands.

So that is what he told me, and I was quite shocked at his point. I know that his statement does not include all uninsured persons. Some are genuinely unable to pay for insurance, but for each person with a legitimate problem that is covered how many of these irresponsible people will be covered as well? I can only hope this plan will help those who really need the help.

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