One Of The Many Reasons Health Care Reform Can Only Be Seen As A Good Thing

This is one of the many reasons why Health Care Reform can only be seen as a good thing.

For years, there has been a strong contingent of gay men that have refused to get tested for HIV because of the repercussions knowingly being positive could bring. The smarter ones would get tested, but only at anonymous clinics and never reveal their status to their primary care physician. Why? It's not just the fear of "what if?" and the stigma that would come with living with HIV, it was also because they knew that if they did test positive their health care benefits would be in jeopardy.

Insurers have been known to drop patients that have tested positive for HIV. If the patient was lucky enough that their insurer did not drop their policy, they would have to pray that they never need to leave their current job (or get new insurance for any other reason) because no new insurance company would take them on because they had a "pre-existing condition." And if their treatment became too costly, they could reach their lifetime cap and no longer get anything from their insurance company.

Gay men have not stopped having sex and new cases of HIV infection continue to occur. Yet the previously policies that were rampant within the health care industry only changed to exclude men with HIV and only served to kill thousands of gay men with HIV and AIDS because they refused to cover them. And it's not just HIV/AIDS. There were forms of cancer and other deadly diseases that all lead down the same road.

Sarah Palin wants to talk about mythical Death Panels under Health Reform, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't understand that the current system is nothing but Death Panels full of MBAs with not a single doctor in sight. That's because she doesn't read anything. Like many of her mind-numbingly ignorant followers who only regurgitate what they've been force fed by her and her ilk.

Health Care Reform is good policy. It is barely a start toward what this country needs, but it is certainly a step in the right direction. I cannot fathom looking at this bill as a bad thing, and I challenge those that do to really understand what this does for us. If, for perhaps one moment, the right-wing nut balls of our society could stop making insidious and just plain stupid comments, then they might see that as well.

I've seen many young people who have no idea how this bill will help them. Frankly, that's because we're young. We are not so likely to have ever been in a situation where our doctor says "I can test you for X, but if it's positive, you'll have to find a way to pay all your doctor bills out of pocket for the remainder of your life… Or we could just risk it and hope things turn out ok." But those days will come. And now we won't have to worry about that anymore and can rest assured that we will be covered and can afford more medical care now.