Law Students

The Baby Bill

By Andrea

We just got the bill from the hospital for Becca's birth and my recovery, which constituted two and a half days total with no complications. Are you ready? $13,000.

But because we have health insurance, we paid $300. It's good to be insured. People who are not rich should be able to have children in decent hospitals. Is this a crazy position?

I could not agree less with this post. I find it deeply disturbing to think that financial ruin in the face of serious medical events is supposed to motivate people to get better jobs. Which of course, assumes that the problem with the near-poor (who don't qualify for Medicaid) is that they are unmotivated. And that it's easy or even possible for a given uninsured person to find a new job that "double[s] his salary and provide[s him] with family coverage." There are lazy people in every class. Making people poorer in a crisis does not change that, nor does it do something positive for the millions of people who work incredibly hard at jobs that don't give them insurance.

Calling health care a "handout" is nothing more than convenient political rhetoric. Is public school a "handout" because the low and middle classes should get "motivated" to make the money to send their kids to private school? Why don't we get off our butts to treat our own sewage and fluoridate our own water?

Full post as published by Peanut Butter Burrito on March 02, 2008 (boomark / email).