- What should we do?
- How should we do it?
- When can we do it?
These are some of the most asked questions in the country by ordinary citizens like you and I. Unfortunately, it seems there is never a straight answer for these questions, even when the magnitude of them is of the utmost importance. It's only natural that we should want some kind of background on this issue. If you've been keeping up with the debate between political parties that has been going on, you've probably seen responses like these:
- the health care bill is wonderful
- the health care bill is awful
- the health care cost will reduce the national debt
- the health care bill with raise the national debt
- the health care bill will help people
- the health care bill will hurt people
If these responses do not confuse you, I don't know what will. If you would like to see even more of the opinions of our elected officials on the health care bill, check this out.
The #1 problem with the voting public and this health care reform is that they don't know what it entails, What it provides to them, or how their money is being spent. I to most defiantly fall into this category. It's important for people to note...The government has NO MONEY. The government has CITIZENS who have money. That's right folks, all those government paid programs that are "free" to the people, guess again. The wonderful tax payers who put their sweat, blood, and tears into working their 9-5 job for 30 years are graciously paying for that. When I say "graciously" I mean forcefully of course. So where exactly do you ask is all the money we pay for health care going? Take a look at this and you may understand better:
National Health Expenditures, 2008
Total = $2.3 Trillion
Source: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Office of the Actuary, National Health Statistics Group.
This chart surprised me in someways, but in other ways not at all. I could of guessed that the majority of the money goes to hospital services and clinical care, but there are other categories I want more explanation for. For example, the above chart says 7% goes to investment. What kind of investment are we speaking of? Program administration receives another 7%, again what kind of administration is this? If this is my money don't I have the right to know the specifics of the use of it? Overall, this graphic didn't hurt my understanding of the where-abouts of the money, but it really just left me with more questions than when I started.
Much of the voting public is left with this question. What is causing health care costs to soar so high? Among the many reason why, here are some of the major reason for the sky-rocketing costs of health care:
- technology and prescription drugs
- chronic disease
- aging of the population
- administrative costs
for more detailed description of these, click here.
We as a voting public are left here, in our everyday lives trying to make it to the next day. Our elected officials in Washington are "working" to provide us with what they think we need, and what they think will help us. But really, even after reading the newspaper, watching the nightly news, and doing our best to stay informed about this topic; we are still just left to speculate and wonder. Is this really what we, the citizens, deserve? Will we ever know the true cost of our health?
Your blog was conversational and relatable. This made it very easy and fun to read. It was definitly not academic writing but still retained it's intelligence. You also tied in your own understanding and confusion surrounding the issue which made it even more relateable.
ReplyDeleteHowever, at times, it felt too conversational almost becoming a rant and not a discussion about health care. Also, you talked mostly about the confusion of healthcare as a whole, not the specific graph. You did refer back to your graph and tell me what you wanted from it but this only lasted for one paragraph.
Although you stuck to the guidelines of 3-5 sentences per paragraph, the sentences were much too wordy. You could have said what you were trying to say in a much shorter space with out losing your style. However, your blog looked nice, your layout was very clean.
In the end I felt that your arguement was about confusion. You don't really take a stance on whether or not this particular graph helped you, you just say "the graph surprised me in someways, but in other ways not at all". This left it unclear to me what you were really trying to say.