When I wrote about how to fix the education system a couple months back, it was a pretty simple solution. Make teachers smarter. Make people take school more seriously. Make education a private industry. Boom! Done! Fixed! Send me the check in the mail America. The healthcare issue however, is a bit more complicated. Don't get me wrong. I am smart as hell...So it's not complicated to me. By complicated I meant that my explanation might be hard for the rest of you to understand. But I am not going to let your stupidity stop me from writing an article about a brilliant way to solve this issue. So let's get started.
Let's first tackle this dumbass question of whether healthcare is a right or a privilege. Who the fuck cares? It's neither. Healthcare is healthcare! It's like any other fucking product or service out there. You get what you can fucking afford! Let's take food for example. Is food a right? Well...that depends on what your definition of "right" is. In terms of the United States constitution, there is some shit in there about everyone being entitled to equality and voting and not being enslaved and civil liberties and all that...but nothing as far I know about being entitled to food or not starving. So in those terms, food is not a right. Some would define "right" on a more primitive basis. They would argue that all humans being born are entitled to basic necessities such as food just on a pure humanity level. These people would say food is a right. But if you are going to argue in primitive terms, why stop there? Take it a step further. Humans are animals. Animals are part of nature. And nature doesn't guarantee shit! Whether it is a tiger in Bengal that can't find prey, a polar bear that can't find fish, or a giraffe that can't find trees in a drought, animals die all the time due to lack of food. Why should nature be any different for humans? In those terms, food is not a right. Do you see what I mean here? These are retarded questions with no real answers that lead to no practical solutions. The whole right vs. privilege bullshit is just some cool play on words being used as political rhetoric in order to influence people. Here is the bottom line: Healthcare is just like anything else in the world. Poor people eat cans of beans that cost 89 cents. Rich people eat 70 dollar lobsters. Healthcare should be the same. You have a right to as much of it as you want, as long as you have the ability to pay for it. Now I know what you are thinking. You might be saying to yourself that what I am describing is healthcare being a privilege. And I am saying that go fuck yourself! If you want to call it a privilege, be my guest. All I am saying is that healthcare is like anything else. Whether you call it a right or a privilege or whatever...makes no difference to me and arguing over it does absolutely nothing to solve the problem.
Now if you are really smart, your next thought should be this: Healthcare is not like anything else because there are cheap alternatives to almost everything else. If that was your next thought please pat yourself on the back. Because after reading the last paragraph anyone with any kind of significant neural activity in their brain would have that thought. Now let me address that thought. Let's go back to the food example. I mentioned the whole poor people eat beans vs. rich people eat lobsters thing. Smart people would say that at least there are 89 cent cans of beans available for poor people. But what is the 89 cent can of bean equivalent in healthcare? On the whole, all of healthcare is pretty damn expensive regardless of quality of care. Healthcare doesn't provide nearly as much of a range of extremely cheap to expensive luxurious options that food does. Well you know what? I think it does. As matter of fact, I think the cheap version of healthcare is so cheap...that it's actually free! Hell, it might even save people money! It's called........drum rollllllllllllllllllllllll.........PREVENTATIVE CARE!!!!!!
If we are going to solve this healthcare issue as a nation, everyone will need to understand one very important thing. We are not going to solve this only by making laws or policies. A genuine desire and motivation to change one's behavior for the better will be required by masses of people across the country. And the behavior improvement will for the most part need to be on the part of the poor. Listen to me poor people. You are poor. You need to understand that many of the illnesses (diabetes, heart disease, STDs, most infectious disease, AIDS, some cancers) that you are complaining about treating can be PREVENTED. So you have absolutely no right to complain about not being able to afford healthcare regarding those issues that could have been PREVENTED by living a healthier life. Now don't get me wrong. I breathe Taco Bell food instead of oxygen. Often times I eat my biggest meal of the day after midnight. I eat literally zero fruits or vegetables. I drive my benz like a maniac on meth. I drink public water when I visit India. I don't put the paper on the seat when I use a public toilet. In no way shape or form do I live a healthy life. So me telling people to live a healthy life may sound hypocritical. But you know what? It's not! Because I can afford treatment for my eventual diabetes and heart disease. I can afford treatment when I catch hepatitis from drinking sugarcane juice off a cart. I can afford treatment when I break my neck in a wreck. I can afford treatment when I catch gonorrhea from the airport toilet. Those are luxuries I can afford! Just like the 70 dollar lobster. Poor people can't! But guess what? They can very easily avoid all of those things by living a better a life than me and not doing all of those unhealthy things. That's their 89 cent can of beans! So if you know you can't afford healthcare, all you have to do is live healthier...and raise your kids to do the same...and that takes care of 90% of your health concerns.
So what about the other 10%? What about all of those things that cannot be helped or controlled or avoided? Well...first, let's take out the 90% I talked about. Maybe that 90% is actually closer to 60% in reality. Or maybe it's closer to 99%. Regardless, it's definitely the majority and a huge chunk. So if you throw out all of the healthcare costs behind accidents that could have been avoided by driving safer, heart disease that could have been avoided by diet and exercise, all of the diseases that could have been avoided by not smoking, drinking or doing drugs, all of the STDs that could have been avoided by practicing safe sex or abstinence, all of the unwanted pregnancies that could have been avoided by making better choices, all of the mental disorders that could have been avoided by living a better family life, all of the children's disorders that could have been avoided by raising your kids right, what are you really left with? Accidents that couldn't have been avoided, diseases that couldn't be prevented (mainly cancer, etc) and some other miscellaneous stuff? First of all, by eliminating even SOME of the avoidable stuff I mentioned, we are saving the healthcare system TRILLIONS. That's TRILLIONS of dollars being saved by patients, insurance companies, the healthcare industry, and the government. By using some of those trillions of dollars towards making sure EVERYONE is covered from the unavoidable stuff, we have essentially solved the healthcare crisis. Obviously this is easier said than done. But let's just say the first step actually happens. Let's say people who can't afford their own healthcare actually start living healthier...and everyone starts saving on healthcare costs like I mentioned. Then here are some things that would be possible.
1. The Medicare and Medicaid programs don't have to bleed money by paying for all of those avoidable diseases and their treatment. The money saved can be used to:
a. Provide treatment for the poor who have those unavoidable problems. I believe eventually Medicare and Medicaid should be used ONLY for this purpose.
b. Encourage and provide incentives to healthcare professionals to promote preventative care to the poor in turn saving even more money.
2. The insurance companies don't have to spend more money by paying for all the avoidable stuff which means less costs for them but more importantly, they don't have an excuse to raise premiums. Lower premiums means more people can afford to be insured means less burden on the government programs.
3. If most of the illnesses are being avoided, it means there are less people going to the doctor's offices. Doctor's offices might not like that but they can be incentivized by government and insurance companies to do more preventative care. Less people going to the doctors for stupid shit means doctors can spend more time behind someone who actually needs it and provide a better quality of care instead of relying on seeing a high volume of patients in a short amount of time. Same can be said for pharmacies. Pharmacist can then be compensated based on consultations, medication therapy management, and treatment follow-up rather than the volume of prescriptions.
This is just a short list. There are endless possibilities that can happen if we can just get those who cannot afford healthcare to stop needing it so much. But like I said, this cannot happen by some magic law that Obama passes or some policy that republicans and democrats keep arguing over. This kind of genuine change in thought and behavior can only happen if the masses of millions of people can be persuaded to do the right thing. So forget Obamacare or universal healthcare. You have no right to universal healthcare if you don't live a healthy lifestyle. And if you do live a healthy lifestyle, then chances are you probably won't need universal healthcare. And in the off chance that you do need help, it will be available because you saved the system money by living healthily. It's that simple. Or complicated. Now let me get off my high horse and end my lecture on living healthily by eating a tub of buttered popcorn at 2AM before going to sleep.
Thanks for reading!
Yours truly,
The King of Nothing
Let's first tackle this dumbass question of whether healthcare is a right or a privilege. Who the fuck cares? It's neither. Healthcare is healthcare! It's like any other fucking product or service out there. You get what you can fucking afford! Let's take food for example. Is food a right? Well...that depends on what your definition of "right" is. In terms of the United States constitution, there is some shit in there about everyone being entitled to equality and voting and not being enslaved and civil liberties and all that...but nothing as far I know about being entitled to food or not starving. So in those terms, food is not a right. Some would define "right" on a more primitive basis. They would argue that all humans being born are entitled to basic necessities such as food just on a pure humanity level. These people would say food is a right. But if you are going to argue in primitive terms, why stop there? Take it a step further. Humans are animals. Animals are part of nature. And nature doesn't guarantee shit! Whether it is a tiger in Bengal that can't find prey, a polar bear that can't find fish, or a giraffe that can't find trees in a drought, animals die all the time due to lack of food. Why should nature be any different for humans? In those terms, food is not a right. Do you see what I mean here? These are retarded questions with no real answers that lead to no practical solutions. The whole right vs. privilege bullshit is just some cool play on words being used as political rhetoric in order to influence people. Here is the bottom line: Healthcare is just like anything else in the world. Poor people eat cans of beans that cost 89 cents. Rich people eat 70 dollar lobsters. Healthcare should be the same. You have a right to as much of it as you want, as long as you have the ability to pay for it. Now I know what you are thinking. You might be saying to yourself that what I am describing is healthcare being a privilege. And I am saying that go fuck yourself! If you want to call it a privilege, be my guest. All I am saying is that healthcare is like anything else. Whether you call it a right or a privilege or whatever...makes no difference to me and arguing over it does absolutely nothing to solve the problem.
Now if you are really smart, your next thought should be this: Healthcare is not like anything else because there are cheap alternatives to almost everything else. If that was your next thought please pat yourself on the back. Because after reading the last paragraph anyone with any kind of significant neural activity in their brain would have that thought. Now let me address that thought. Let's go back to the food example. I mentioned the whole poor people eat beans vs. rich people eat lobsters thing. Smart people would say that at least there are 89 cent cans of beans available for poor people. But what is the 89 cent can of bean equivalent in healthcare? On the whole, all of healthcare is pretty damn expensive regardless of quality of care. Healthcare doesn't provide nearly as much of a range of extremely cheap to expensive luxurious options that food does. Well you know what? I think it does. As matter of fact, I think the cheap version of healthcare is so cheap...that it's actually free! Hell, it might even save people money! It's called........drum rollllllllllllllllllllllll.........PREVENTATIVE CARE!!!!!!
If we are going to solve this healthcare issue as a nation, everyone will need to understand one very important thing. We are not going to solve this only by making laws or policies. A genuine desire and motivation to change one's behavior for the better will be required by masses of people across the country. And the behavior improvement will for the most part need to be on the part of the poor. Listen to me poor people. You are poor. You need to understand that many of the illnesses (diabetes, heart disease, STDs, most infectious disease, AIDS, some cancers) that you are complaining about treating can be PREVENTED. So you have absolutely no right to complain about not being able to afford healthcare regarding those issues that could have been PREVENTED by living a healthier life. Now don't get me wrong. I breathe Taco Bell food instead of oxygen. Often times I eat my biggest meal of the day after midnight. I eat literally zero fruits or vegetables. I drive my benz like a maniac on meth. I drink public water when I visit India. I don't put the paper on the seat when I use a public toilet. In no way shape or form do I live a healthy life. So me telling people to live a healthy life may sound hypocritical. But you know what? It's not! Because I can afford treatment for my eventual diabetes and heart disease. I can afford treatment when I catch hepatitis from drinking sugarcane juice off a cart. I can afford treatment when I break my neck in a wreck. I can afford treatment when I catch gonorrhea from the airport toilet. Those are luxuries I can afford! Just like the 70 dollar lobster. Poor people can't! But guess what? They can very easily avoid all of those things by living a better a life than me and not doing all of those unhealthy things. That's their 89 cent can of beans! So if you know you can't afford healthcare, all you have to do is live healthier...and raise your kids to do the same...and that takes care of 90% of your health concerns.
So what about the other 10%? What about all of those things that cannot be helped or controlled or avoided? Well...first, let's take out the 90% I talked about. Maybe that 90% is actually closer to 60% in reality. Or maybe it's closer to 99%. Regardless, it's definitely the majority and a huge chunk. So if you throw out all of the healthcare costs behind accidents that could have been avoided by driving safer, heart disease that could have been avoided by diet and exercise, all of the diseases that could have been avoided by not smoking, drinking or doing drugs, all of the STDs that could have been avoided by practicing safe sex or abstinence, all of the unwanted pregnancies that could have been avoided by making better choices, all of the mental disorders that could have been avoided by living a better family life, all of the children's disorders that could have been avoided by raising your kids right, what are you really left with? Accidents that couldn't have been avoided, diseases that couldn't be prevented (mainly cancer, etc) and some other miscellaneous stuff? First of all, by eliminating even SOME of the avoidable stuff I mentioned, we are saving the healthcare system TRILLIONS. That's TRILLIONS of dollars being saved by patients, insurance companies, the healthcare industry, and the government. By using some of those trillions of dollars towards making sure EVERYONE is covered from the unavoidable stuff, we have essentially solved the healthcare crisis. Obviously this is easier said than done. But let's just say the first step actually happens. Let's say people who can't afford their own healthcare actually start living healthier...and everyone starts saving on healthcare costs like I mentioned. Then here are some things that would be possible.
1. The Medicare and Medicaid programs don't have to bleed money by paying for all of those avoidable diseases and their treatment. The money saved can be used to:
a. Provide treatment for the poor who have those unavoidable problems. I believe eventually Medicare and Medicaid should be used ONLY for this purpose.
b. Encourage and provide incentives to healthcare professionals to promote preventative care to the poor in turn saving even more money.
2. The insurance companies don't have to spend more money by paying for all the avoidable stuff which means less costs for them but more importantly, they don't have an excuse to raise premiums. Lower premiums means more people can afford to be insured means less burden on the government programs.
3. If most of the illnesses are being avoided, it means there are less people going to the doctor's offices. Doctor's offices might not like that but they can be incentivized by government and insurance companies to do more preventative care. Less people going to the doctors for stupid shit means doctors can spend more time behind someone who actually needs it and provide a better quality of care instead of relying on seeing a high volume of patients in a short amount of time. Same can be said for pharmacies. Pharmacist can then be compensated based on consultations, medication therapy management, and treatment follow-up rather than the volume of prescriptions.
This is just a short list. There are endless possibilities that can happen if we can just get those who cannot afford healthcare to stop needing it so much. But like I said, this cannot happen by some magic law that Obama passes or some policy that republicans and democrats keep arguing over. This kind of genuine change in thought and behavior can only happen if the masses of millions of people can be persuaded to do the right thing. So forget Obamacare or universal healthcare. You have no right to universal healthcare if you don't live a healthy lifestyle. And if you do live a healthy lifestyle, then chances are you probably won't need universal healthcare. And in the off chance that you do need help, it will be available because you saved the system money by living healthily. It's that simple. Or complicated. Now let me get off my high horse and end my lecture on living healthily by eating a tub of buttered popcorn at 2AM before going to sleep.
Thanks for reading!
Yours truly,
The King of Nothing
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