The reason it has been a few days since my last post is because I've been simmering on an idea. And just like simmering some tasty meal makes the flavors blend together, softens its contents, and makes it overall better, so is my idea.
I feel like people have more of a right and an obligation to provide others with free, healthy food than they do to provide them with cheap medication, easy access to clinics, medical supplies, etc. etc. Medicine is man's attempt to extend man's life from premature death, and increase longevity of the human race. Food on the other hand, is nature/providence/God's attempt to keep us living daily.
Whoever gave us the notion that poor people were obligated to some sort of medical attention SERIOUSLY got the whole picture wrong. Medicine is not a necessary part of our survival: if you eat right, exercise, and don't take unnecessary risks, you'll live a meaningful and happy life. Yes, there are exceptions to this: take for instance if you have a birth defect that causes you to die around the age of 30 in a lot of pain--no matter how healthy you are, you still have a pretty inevitable chance of dying around age 30. BUT, personally, I would rather live in the comfort of having a full stomach than I would in the comfort that my pain might be lessened when I do die at age 30.
Everyone is going to die eventually; part of life, ironically, is death. But being forced to eat top ramen, mac and cheese, and spaghettios shouldn't have to be. The dollar amount between the two is so drastic that it's silly that some people are forced to eat garbage. A nice fancy dinner doesn't usually cost more than $15per person, yet (depending on your plan) you can pay over $1,000 per month on health care.
I did the math for you:
$1,000/mo = $33 per day, or 2 thanksgiving dinners PER DAY.
Our U.S. National GNP devotes such a significant portion of its budget to health care welfare systems when really it has no ethical basis behind it. More people would be benefited more (utilitarianism) by nearly free food than they would by cheap medical care.
I'm not saying get rid of medical insurance, I'm saying completely privatize it. Employers can still use their own health insurance programs. Individuals can still pay for it themselves. Poor people would just have to suffer and die because they can't afford it, or because their employer doesn't provide it. It's that simple. But at least those poor people could make the attempt to pay for their insurance and not have to worry about getting a healthy meal if they can't manage.
Instead of paying doctors we should be paying chefs who can provide healthy food instead of junk fast food that poor people are prone to waste their food stamps on. McDonalds and junk processed foods tend to be purchased most due to their cheap and easy qualities, but bet me that if the government pumped more money into making food that is cheap, easy and healthy we really would get cheap easy and healthy food. Our doctors might gripe and moan about losing their highest paying customer (the average taxed american) but hey, what makes their profession better than the food industry?
I guess my main point is that we don't NEED medicine to live but the average citizen when he or she pays her taxes spends a portion of that on prolonging the life of the elderly and the poor.
And yet we need FOOD to live and we aren't don't really anything to prolong a starving person's life or helping people lose american fat. (contrary to popular belief, the #1 cause of obesity is cheap food.--the cheapest food is the most unhealthy, that's why it's cheap. It's not that unhealthy food is loved more by people and so they are prone to eating it, it's not even that there is a culture in america behind eating unhealthy food. It is that poor people can't afford good quality food and so they eat unhealthy food that is cheap and the culture of poverty dictates the culture of American fat. How many millionaires are overweight? A few, but not as many as live in poverty.)
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