HW 29

　
Everybody has heard healthcare and insurance brought up a lot in the past few years. Some are well versed and most can hold a conversation about the problems and the solutions that they believe would work. Right now the current law that was signed in in March 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, seeks to make life easier for the working class by prohibiting denial for pre-existing conditions, expanding the eligibility for Medicaid, giving incentives for business to offer care, subsidizing insurance cost, and pumping money into research. This act is unprecedented in America, it is a step towards universal healthcare, which if we get there will be revolutionary, as American insurance has always been privatized in our country.

The first documented form of insurance in America dates back to colonial times in Philadelphia, where Ben Franklin started a firm that insured houses in the event of a fire. Insurance is believed to be originally invented by Babylonian traders who paid into a large fund that whomever suffered a loss could take payment. Lloyds of London is the most famous of the early on private insurance companies. In America, before and during the Great Depression medicine got better and trips to the hospital were more frequent. However, when the depression hit, people were finding it very hard to afford the medical bills. So, in realizing that they had little revenue due to poor people, hospitals implemented a new insurance program that started a trend. Insurance went through a great phase, and then a not so great phase, now here we are hopefully transitioning to another great phase, but this time with fair care.

Death is inexplicable, unless you’ve been through it, in which case you have no voice in the dominant discourse, literally. How we die, well that we can explain, or at least attempt to. More often then not, we go to the hospital when we’re sick, and if you’re seriously ill, it’s really hard to recover. Some do, most don’t. Even people who know their chances are slim still insist on seeing a doctor, he eases the pain and tries his hardest to cure you, but if you know you’re going to die, isn’t that postponing the inevitable? But why do people go about all of this suffering in a hospital? I feel the suffering would be cut down monumentally if you were in your own home and around people who love you. Humans like what they’re used to, they find solace in familiarity. When we see a doctor, we know we must be in good hands. But who’s to say that holistic treatment isn’t better for your ailment. It boggles my mind why anyone would spend their last days, weeks, or months in a hospital when they know that they are their last days. How do we die? On a cold uncomfortable bed, hooked up to machines, eating shitty food, watching Jeopardy on a TV that must be circa 1993.

We look down on sick people, while also feeling strong distaste or embarrassment. This is stigma. We feel embarrassed for someone if they in a postion that we feel would be embarrassing if we were in it. We see everything as a disease, to the human mind anything not socially acceptable is on the level of leprosy. Someone get’s their as cleaned for them, we’re embarrassed. We feed off of other’s misfortune, we say we treat crippled people like everyone else, when we know we really don’t. You go against cultural norms, and you are met with social disapproval. Our social life is our everything, especially in high school. Our energy comes from the torturing of the different. We tell ourselves, “it’s their fault, they can try to make friends, they could be normal.” But we never ask ourselves, can we be more different?