Thursday, October 18, 2007
Social Medicine
Social Medicine has been quite a hot topic lately. Hilary Clinton is one of the biggest advocates for it out of all of the Presidential hopefuls for 2008. I have spoken out very strongly against social medicine since I've known anything about it, but now I realize, I didn't really know what I was talking about. I recently had a collision with social medicine. As you know, I am a missionary and I live on a missionary budget. Thats........ not a lot.
I am currently seeking a religious workers visa to go to Australia as a missionary for a couple of years. Australia has some pretty rigid medical forms to be filled out by a doctor. It requires Hep A, B, and C tests as well as a chest x-ray. These are not cheap. But because of my annual income of about 2000 dollars, I was put on a sliding scale for low income families. I got the physical and blood tests for $250.00. Pretty amazing right? In normal circumstances outside of social medicine, it would have been about $650.00 for these tests.
Here's my beef with it all. When my wife went in, the same doctor that had seen me, saw her as well. He basically said, "Well, you know all this stuff on this form is to really keep you out of Australia, so, I don't really need to do the physical. I'll just fill in the blanks with the answers they'll want." Um.... I know I'm not paying a lot here, but you really should do it anyway. Well, I don't really have a right to be ungrateful, because I chose what we could afford.
My point is this; Hilary wants to come in and require you to have medical insurance. Require means that if you don't do it, she can have you arrested. Since when does a person that I employ have a right to tell me what to do. Social medicine makes bad doctors. Why should I be required to see them? Governments only requirement of me should be to uphold the law and protect the country. Not tell me what to do.
I am currently seeking a religious workers visa to go to Australia as a missionary for a couple of years. Australia has some pretty rigid medical forms to be filled out by a doctor. It requires Hep A, B, and C tests as well as a chest x-ray. These are not cheap. But because of my annual income of about 2000 dollars, I was put on a sliding scale for low income families. I got the physical and blood tests for $250.00. Pretty amazing right? In normal circumstances outside of social medicine, it would have been about $650.00 for these tests.
Here's my beef with it all. When my wife went in, the same doctor that had seen me, saw her as well. He basically said, "Well, you know all this stuff on this form is to really keep you out of Australia, so, I don't really need to do the physical. I'll just fill in the blanks with the answers they'll want." Um.... I know I'm not paying a lot here, but you really should do it anyway. Well, I don't really have a right to be ungrateful, because I chose what we could afford.
My point is this; Hilary wants to come in and require you to have medical insurance. Require means that if you don't do it, she can have you arrested. Since when does a person that I employ have a right to tell me what to do. Social medicine makes bad doctors. Why should I be required to see them? Governments only requirement of me should be to uphold the law and protect the country. Not tell me what to do.
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