“Americans have choices. And they’ve got to make a choice. And so maybe, rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love, and they want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care.”
Jason Chaffetz, Republcian Rep., Utah
But Republicans don’t want to give people much choice when it comes to transportation. We should all rely on cars and planes. Forget trains, buses, and subways. They would rather build more and more freeways, taking away the tax bases of central cities.
The cost of a cell phone pales in comparison to cost of a car, even a decent used one. Then there is all the gas, service, and parking places for it.
And the car has destroyed many a downtown because people prefer going where there is “free parking”. But what is the cost of that free parking: rain runoff (filled with contaminants) and heat radiation.
And what is the cost of health care compared to a cell-phone. We each pay $238 for medical insurance deducted from our Social Security checks. We don’t pay anyway near that for our cell phone service. And the iPhone that is not fully paid for costs only $16.67 per month.
And what is the cost to the rest of us for an uninsured person? Companies should worry about people showing up sick because they can’t get afford medical care. All of us should be concerned about somebody who doesn’t get care for a communicable disease. Did you ever hear about Typhoid Mary who worked in food service? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon. Although she never became sick from typhoid, she was a carrier who infected many of the families she cooked for.
Health care for all of us means better health for all of us. True conservatives would want to keep as many people well as possible.
