Forum: Close to Home
Topic: Viewpoints - The U.S. spends two-thirds of its drug war budget on interdiction and law enforcement and one-third on treatment and prevention. Is this the appropriate ratio?
Topic Posted by: Close To HomeDate Posted: Wed Mar 18 15:22:22 1998
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Posted by: Dallas Williams
Date posted: Tue Mar 31 7:29:03 1998
Subject: Paying the Bills
Message:
Neither my nor my wife's full-time employment provides any insurance. So I pay for a family of four plan. The premium has risen by more than 11 percent every year for seven years. I keep a very high deductible to lower the monthly bills, so I must spend several thousand dollars before the insurer kicks in anything. There is no dental and no eye-care coverage. Even so the premium costs 25% of my take-home pay. Recently the premium was jacked up by 10 percent alone just to pay for pregnancy cover because Congress passed a law making this elective condition a disease. We had taken steps to make pregnancy physically impossible, but still we are forced to pay for pregnancy coverage. I can see the bottom line coming: a lobbying effort backed by PBS to force me to pay hundreds perhaps thousands more to cover treatment for people with chemcial dependancy. Unless and until the country adopts national health-care coverage legislation and stops the private sector from sucking billions out of the medical insurance pot, ALL ATTEMPTS by special interests -- as legitimate as they may be -- to grab coverage for their conditions is unfair and cripples people like me. The fact is that thousands, perhaps millions of people are dropping their insurance because it costs too much, leaving those of us who feel morally obligated to cover ourselves and our children with the bill when the willfully uninsured need coverage. It makes no sense for you to set up a situation where those with powerful media connections and those with special interests can shout loudly and get what they want, while others of us are FORCED to pay for regardless of whether we want to coverage or do not. You are stealing money from me and my family. So stop this eternal lobbying for your benefit until you nationalize America's health care system. If you want treatment for chemical dependancy, make it an optional insurance coverage, like dental care is and pregnancy used to be. Come on, what's fair is fair. Stop obsessing over it.
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