Privilege is a special right, advantage or immunity granted to a person or group. If health care access is accepted as a privilege, then, by definition, there must be people who are excluded.
To those who believe health care is a privilege, consider this scenario: John, a healthy employed 27-year-old has not been granted the privilege of health care by his employer or government. He has no insurance. John suddenly becomes in need of high-cost health care. Maybe he is struck by an uninsured motorist, hit by a tree while cutting firewood or diagnosed with cancer. At any rate, John needs lifesaving care, but he is not privileged, and he can’t pay his own way.
What happens to John now? Is he turned away? Is he sent home to die? Who would pay for his care in the end? Will the privileged mind paying higher fees to cover his cost? Should already financially strapped hospitals be compelled to simply absorb the cost? Do we burden John with a lifetime of debt so high he may never be able to buy his own home, or get credit to start his own business?
That is an example of tragedies that happen every day.
Before we accept a plan that will make more Americans unprivileged, we need answers to the question of what will happen to those who are not among the privileged?
I urge Sen. Susan Collins to find the answers to these questions before voting to replace the ACA.
Yvette Robinson, Farmington
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