Re: Healthcare or Health Insurance
Is it a horse or a zebra?, is a question we never ask because of evident stripes. But trying to identify healthcare from health insurance becomes more difficult because stripes are not easily identifiable.
Let’s make health insurance a zebra and healthcare a horse. They are completely different animals. Health insurance has the stripes of profit. Healthcare provides service.
Healthcare is the horse because the sole motive is service. Healthcare provides and promotes health. Healthcare keeps disease away and promotes health with vaccines and doctor visits to monitor progress and compliance. Healthcare samples blood and urine for proper diagnosis.
Healthcare monitors proper drug use like interactions and side effects. Healthcare functions solely to keep us healthy.
Health insurance functions completely differently. Health insurance collects money with no service, therefore is the only profitable entity interjecting itself into our welfare. It represents the striped zebra.
Seemingly, healthcare more palomino-like remains a horse. Doctors, nurses and staff must be paid. Rent, supplies and equipment must be paid. Dollars come from taxpayers like the public. Health insurance and healthcare are different animals.
The public can view private ownership as a system of profitable health insurance trying to look like healthcare provision saving tax money but forget that the zebra has stripes. Those stripes are profit.
Profit comes from raising prices and cutting labor. Profit will overwork doctors and nurses, extend appointment time, limit disease monitoring and surgical requirements. Private profit depends on health insurance because it is a zebra. Zebras are not the horse which is healthcare.
Think of the private business called Insight coming to Hollister to take the place of our Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital. This Insight looks like a horse by hiding its stripes. This zebra desires to supplant our hospital by siphoning away our health into a system of profit.
Beware these are different animals. Carefully read ballot measure X and vote “No” for no sale. If sold our hospital is gone forever.
Mary Zanger
Hollister
