Coming through one of the shops on the way to negotiations I was confronted about health care reform. This member told me he had read the entire 1018 page bill and wondered why in the world the IBT would be supporting this. First I applaud his effort to dedicate the time to read the bill. It can be found here. While I can't speak for the IBT, and as I've said before I really haven't followed this as closely as I should, I am for real reform.
He had questions that followed the lines of traditional Fox News right wing talking heads. He said 80% of Americans had health care plans and were satisfied with their care so why should we care about the 20% minority? His answer for health care reform was tort reform. This sounds like a great idea to reduce some costs until you are the one who has the "honest mistake" done to you or your loved ones.
Here is a fact check article on the issue worth reading. And here is an article from Politifact discussing 120,000,000 losing their employer based health care plan. Both the article and the sight are worth viewing.
The part of his debate that really disappointed me was that we have not just members on the street, but friends. Are we really that selfish that we would deny our friends, which we worked with for many years, the opportunity to have access to health care they can afford? Truly the attitude of "Hooray for me, Screw You!" is continuing to be used against us to our great detriment.
The increased use of emergency room visits for basic health care, the spread of disease (MRSA, TB, H1N1) and the poorer overall health of the population will escalate and continue to weigh on this country. If the status quo remains we will pay the cost for these uninsured people through higher taxes, higher mortality rates, and sky high insurance premiums.
