"Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must - must - redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent healthcare is by definition re-distributional."~Unknown
In A.Trevino's editorial, Free Services, there are some thoughtful points brought up as well as what can be seen as injustices to the hard-working population.
First, let it be known the Medicaid program is over 50% federally funded, and it is a completely voluntary program for each state to have. Also, CHIP is not Medicaid, it is bundled together by our state to be administered by one group but very different. The $863 dollar tab is not only on the shoulders of those not on Medicaid but those on it as well. Any working citizen or resident is paying in to the same pot you do. In that respect, Medicaid makes us "united" in helping each other out.
While I understand your grievance over "picking up the tab", and also understand how often things like Medicaid and CHIP are probably abused, it does help a lot of children that would otherwise not have any healthcare. Further, a doctor has the right to say no or yes to accepting Medicaid. If they say yes and choose to accept Medicaid patients they can't also be mad that they do. It also needs to be examined how much money it will cost not to have these services.
Should we expect people to get their own insurance? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the average hourly wage in Texas is $15.44, not including part time jobs (which many people have been forced to take due to lack of extended unemployment and full time work availablity). Most jobs do not offer insurance, and to buy it on your own is too expensive. The monthly average insurance premium for a household of four is $750, not including office visit copays.
As most of us know, Texas leads the nation in the number of uninsured or underinsured children. We also have over 3 million children on Medicaid. According to the Center for Disease Control, 'Disease prevention is key to public health. It is always better to prevent a
disease than to treat it.' If we were to "do away with" medicaid or "free services" how many children would suffer? According to a recent article, "Health department statistics show the number of whooping cough cases in Texas has risen by almost 60 percent in the state since 2008." This is a disease (also known as pertussis) protected by the DTaP vaccine. Vaccines need to be given in lower-income and lower socio-economic regions of the state because they are at a higher risk, and without Medicaid or CHIP these parents will not be able to vaccinate. While I am not a strong believer in all vaccines that is a debate for another day.
In order to have people stand up for a cause you believe in, such as "deleting" free services you must first weigh the pros and cons to them. I read your pros, but never saw any cons. You also need to ask yourself hard questions, such as...What if I lose my job and get cancer? What if I had a job with no insurance and got pregnant? Some of these people on Medicaid may because they were laid off after paying into the "system"you say we get rid of, and now they are using it because they are terminally ill with no way to pay for what they need to live. I believe we all pay in, and sometimes we all need a little help, unexpected or not, and to get rid of a healthcare program like Medicaid would make Texas a huge outcast among our United States. Getting rid of what I see as "not-so-free" services seems to be too big of a risk for a much more expensive situation and a lot of sick children.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Friday, April 13, 2012
Breath of Fresh..What???...Smoke
After reading through blog after blog I was having a hard time deciding which one I felt the most strongly about. The new abortion law seemed to be a hot button, ironically I found it too politically incorrect to comment on. Then there was a blog about pink slime in our food being, "no big deal", which was incredibly distasteful. For someone, like me, with a degree in nutrition I found it incredibly "wrong"for pink slime to be "no big deal". But, today someone else made my mind up for me when I stepped out of People's Pharmacy with my seven week old baby and my eight year old son and received a blast of secondhand smoke in all of our faces.
The blog, Smoke and Mirrors, by Alison stayed mainstream in settling into more of a "freedom" type of approach, but I do not think the Smoke-Free Texas campaign is trying to take away the liberties or freedoms of a smoker as much as it is trying to provide the "freedom"or "liberty" to others to choose whether they want to be around secondhand smoke or not. In the blog she states, "No one should be forced to do what society thinks is "right" if its not what you or I view as right for ourselves." I found it counterintuitive to make such a statement without thinking about the person having to inhale the secondhand smoke. I do not smoke, and I do not think I should have to share the clean air with a smoker. She then goes on to say, "The fact that Texas has adopted this whole "smoke free Texas" thing shows me that tomorrow I might wake up to find that I can't eat fast food because of the fat content and it's relation to heart disease." I understand where she is trying to go with this, but smoking and fast food are two very different subjects. If you CHOOSE to eat fast food you are only harming yourself and no one else around you, but if you CHOOSE to smoke outside the person next to you is affected.
My main argument with the blog/article is that secondhand smoke leading to or not leading to cancer is a very debated topic depending on where your information is found. It is also a little more complicated than "just secondhand smoke leads to cancer". According to the American Cancer Society's Facts on Secondhand Smoke "Secondhand smoke is classified as a “known human carcinogen” (cancer-causing agent) by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the US National Toxicology Program, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a branch of the World Health Organization.
Tobacco smoke contains more than 7,000 chemical compounds. More than 250 of these chemicals are known to be harmful, and at least 69 are known to cause cancer.
SHS has been linked to lung cancer. There is also some evidence suggesting it may be linked with childhood leukemia and cancers of the larynx (voice box), pharynx (throat), brain, bladder, rectum, stomach, and breast."
The EPA, IARC, WHO, National Toxicology Program, and American Cancer Society have enough research to scare me into not wanting my children exposed to secondhand smoke for any length of time if I can prevent it. I feel this law is more about protecting liberties rather than abolishing them. Who is to say you have the right to smoke (even though you are a non-smoker) and my seven week old, six year old or eight year old don't have the right to fresher "immediate"air? It is not only cancer they could contract but asthma or lower respiratory infections.
I think she made good arguments in her favor, but could have made a stronger argument by checking into any and all possible facts. Comparing the freedom to smoke with diabetes and sugar really threw me off. Sugar does not cause diabetes, and there is no correlation with sugar to diabetes especially in Type 1, to expect the world to ban sugar is unrealistic because it is not directly linked to diabetes like secondhand smoke and cancer is linked.
Maybe I am being overly critical because I also feel strongly towards this law, but in some aspects it is a lose-lose law. Both sides of the law are going to feel that they have lost their "freedom"in a sense.
The blog, Smoke and Mirrors, by Alison stayed mainstream in settling into more of a "freedom" type of approach, but I do not think the Smoke-Free Texas campaign is trying to take away the liberties or freedoms of a smoker as much as it is trying to provide the "freedom"or "liberty" to others to choose whether they want to be around secondhand smoke or not. In the blog she states, "No one should be forced to do what society thinks is "right" if its not what you or I view as right for ourselves." I found it counterintuitive to make such a statement without thinking about the person having to inhale the secondhand smoke. I do not smoke, and I do not think I should have to share the clean air with a smoker. She then goes on to say, "The fact that Texas has adopted this whole "smoke free Texas" thing shows me that tomorrow I might wake up to find that I can't eat fast food because of the fat content and it's relation to heart disease." I understand where she is trying to go with this, but smoking and fast food are two very different subjects. If you CHOOSE to eat fast food you are only harming yourself and no one else around you, but if you CHOOSE to smoke outside the person next to you is affected.
My main argument with the blog/article is that secondhand smoke leading to or not leading to cancer is a very debated topic depending on where your information is found. It is also a little more complicated than "just secondhand smoke leads to cancer". According to the American Cancer Society's Facts on Secondhand Smoke "Secondhand smoke is classified as a “known human carcinogen” (cancer-causing agent) by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the US National Toxicology Program, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a branch of the World Health Organization.
Tobacco smoke contains more than 7,000 chemical compounds. More than 250 of these chemicals are known to be harmful, and at least 69 are known to cause cancer.
SHS has been linked to lung cancer. There is also some evidence suggesting it may be linked with childhood leukemia and cancers of the larynx (voice box), pharynx (throat), brain, bladder, rectum, stomach, and breast."
The EPA, IARC, WHO, National Toxicology Program, and American Cancer Society have enough research to scare me into not wanting my children exposed to secondhand smoke for any length of time if I can prevent it. I feel this law is more about protecting liberties rather than abolishing them. Who is to say you have the right to smoke (even though you are a non-smoker) and my seven week old, six year old or eight year old don't have the right to fresher "immediate"air? It is not only cancer they could contract but asthma or lower respiratory infections.
I think she made good arguments in her favor, but could have made a stronger argument by checking into any and all possible facts. Comparing the freedom to smoke with diabetes and sugar really threw me off. Sugar does not cause diabetes, and there is no correlation with sugar to diabetes especially in Type 1, to expect the world to ban sugar is unrealistic because it is not directly linked to diabetes like secondhand smoke and cancer is linked.
Maybe I am being overly critical because I also feel strongly towards this law, but in some aspects it is a lose-lose law. Both sides of the law are going to feel that they have lost their "freedom"in a sense.
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