Subscribe to Breaking NewsGuest Commentary: Nancylee Myatt
OUR HEALTH CARE EMERGENCY
Nancylee Myatt, writer/co-executive producer of television’s “South of Nowhere,” is feeling downright ill about this country’s health care dilemma.
It’s time to take the temperature of this nation… Too bad most of us can’t afford it.
There are a million and one reasons why we must elect a Democrat to the White House in ‘08 (and a liberal one at that), most of them, glaringly obvious. Aside from the whole debacle in the Middle East, there is the “what in God’s name was the Bush administration thinking when they sucked us into a ground war in Iraq?” It is Vietnam times ten.
And then there are the activist judges in all the Federal courts, not just the Supreme Court, so say goodbye to affirmative action and Roe v Wade. These are the people who scream for states rights, while trying to stop states from legalizing gay marriage, medical marijuana and assisted suicide for the terminally ill.
But the top of the list for domestic issues has got to be our broken health care system. Nothing would more radically alter the disparity between rich and poor in this country than single-payer national health insurance.
How is it that we are the only major industrialized country in the world that believes health care is a privilege and not a right? Why do so many of our fellow citizens lose everything to catastrophic illness? How come people have to stay in jobs they don’t like or don’t offer them chance of advancement because of lack of health care portability? Why do insurance companies get to dump people from their rolls after years of premiums?
And for the gay community, the situation is worse than for the general population. It’s not just gay men getting turned down for health insurance because they might get AIDS, as if straight people are immune. Most companies and unions that have health plans offer benefits for dependents. But you often pay an extra premium, because being gay is deemed a risk. Like we don’t live that every day.
Even in places where there are domestic partnership laws, gay couples aren’t necessarily protected. UPS, an enormous employer, was going to deny the New Jersey Civil Union law and not recognize the partners of gay employees until there was a public outcry. Come on, we helped make BROWN sexy.
But here is my favorite wrinkle, the IRS considers benefits awarded to an unmarried partner to be taxable compensation. Now we all know the tax code is slanted against lesbians and gay men, but this one just takes the cake. We are talking about people’s health! Basics: Women not getting mammograms and pap tests; men not getting colonoscopy and prostate cancer screenings. Because our government–and Congress is more than culpable for this, too–has chosen to decide to tax things like domestic partnership benefits.
Warren Buffett was said to point out that his real tax rate was lower than his secretary’s!
We can give the big hedge fund managers in this country extraordinary tax loopholes to dive through. And we have watched the current administration drive holes through the social safety net, while the top 1% of the population enjoyed a vacation from a real tax code. And yet, they still have to tax the health insurance benefits of people who might like to get married but aren’t allowed to do so.
The system is broke, unfocused, and crippled by agendas that have nothing to do with the care of this nation. I’m for supporting a Democratic presidential candidate that will dedicate their elected term to fix it. Show me the plan!
Nancylee Myatt is an Emmy-winning television producer and writer who most recently served as Co-Executive Producer/show-runner, Writer and Director on the first two seasons of The N’s “South Of Nowhere” which was recently nominated for its 2nd GLAAD Media Award for Best Outstanding Drama, and a Teen Choice nomination for best break-out show. She lives in Burbank, California.
hey nancy. we went to south high together. took drama together. remember me? I rememberthat cute cut out of you sitting on your parents mantle. email me. coffee?
Bill
I am in no way polarizing the issue. You have not read or understood what I have written. I spoke about fiscal responsibility. The fact that you pay school taxes, but have no children is irrelevant. The fact that taxes go to support a system where people can get free healthcare without any fiscal responsility for their own healthcare is the issue. They are abusing the system and getting BETTER healthcare than those are paying taxes. If they had to pay even 10% of the $500,000 of a coronary bypass surgery, they would of course then begin to excerise, eat well and stop smoking. A national healthcare system would only make this problem worse. And it would also create a huge problem in access to healthcare, as they have in Canada or England, where they aren’t even able to get a simple CT scan in the ER, something that here in the US happens quite easily. Those are the issues with healtcare.
And the statement about being annoyed that it is assummed that as a gay male that I am automatically a liberal democrat did not have to do with the healthcare issue alone. It had to do with the fact, that on this website, they do not even give the opportunity on their polls to vote for the republician candidate, as if no one would ever even choose it.
Again, in no way shape or form was my statement polarizied nor did I say it was black and white. I said that we should not have a universal healthcare system, and I said that it would never be “free”, and that is would be more abused than it is now, and the middle class would be more burdened than they are now.
Thank you.
charles,
dude you’re polarizing the issue… it’s not black and white, “liberal democrats” vs anybody. it’s about needs. yes your parents pay taxes that go towards other people’s health care. and my taxes go towards schools in which i have no kids. and pay salaries of civil servants i may never need. etcetera.
hopefully none of us want a country of absolutes where either each citizen is fully supporting every other person’s life, or on the other end we’re all in it for ourselves.
we’re looking for a balanced solution that helps the most people in need. i don’t know whether any of these candidates are going to supply that solution but i do hope we all feel we can help each other out at least a little.
As a physician and as a gay male, I am deeply saddened by the entitlement of this writer’s tirade. Healthcare is indeed a privilege. I grew up working on my family’s dairy farm since the age of 5. As my family are self-employed dairy farmers, they must buy their own health insurance. They pay almost $1800 a month for their health insurance. Yet, they still have a $3000 deductable and also have very few prescriptions, which are fully covered. Why am I telling you these things? Do my parents feel they are entitled to these things for free?
Of course they do not, they expect to work for what they need. They work from 4:30 am until often 10:30 pm, 7 days a week, even on Christmas, because the cattle wait for no man.
Yet I have encountered numerous patients whom are on welfare or disability and not only receive the same care, but even better care. This healtcare is not “free”. My parent’s tax dollars are paying for this care. These patients get all the best prescriptions, all the best preventative care, and all the best interventional care without any fiscal responsibility. Without fiscal responsibility they have no reason to have any responsibility for their own health. They will not attempt to make changes, which would benefit their own health, such as diet or exercise, since they are able to get a gastric bypass or liposuction. Yes, that is right folks, the “free” healthcare will pay for liposuction. I had a patient that in 1994 had 100 lbs of liposuction on each thigh, then in 2002, wanted the procedure again because she had gained back all of the weight and then some. Why are my healthcare dollars paying for cosmetic surgery for someone who will not take any responsibly for his/her own healthcare, both fiscally and physically? Single payer healthcare is a fallacy. The “single” payer would be the taxpayer, like my parents who would continue to be responsible and the others would continue to take advantage of the system, even worse than they do now.
Also, access to healthcare, as in Canada and England would become a huge problem. People would not be able to get the healthcare that they needed within a reasonable time limit as we do now. Getting a “liberal democrat” in office would be the worse mistake we could possibly make. Just because I am gay does not make me automatically liberal, and it is so frustrating that people just assume that I am so. It is time that everyone in this country takes responsibility for himself or herself.