The Harry Potter Alliance

I agree with you that our current health care system needs work, and I would never dream of calling the health care reform a “Nazi plan,” and I believe that many conservatives would agree with me. A big theme in Harry Potter is prejudice, which comes in all forms. The Ministry stereotypes giants and werewolves as half-breeds not fit to live among humans, ignoring evidence (like Grawp and Lupin) of anything else. Although I know your intentions were good, stereotyping conservatives as “uninformed” accomplishes nothing. I believe I am informed, and with the information I have, I can proudly say that I do not want a national health care plan. I say again, the current system needs work, but there are ways to fix it without this huge overhaul. For example, making it possible for insurance companies to cross state lines. This would increase competition among companies and result in lower costs and better service, just as it does in every other industry in the free market. I am a firm believer that putting health insurance (which already has a lot of regulation from the government) back onto the free market will lower costs. The current system needs to be fixed, not trashed. I leave you with this link to a site that lists several articles on the British nationalized health care system. A three-year-old girl has her heart surgery rescheduled three times due to lack of beds; a woman must go to the United States to receive her brain surgery because Britain cannot do it; people contracting deadly diseases in overcrowded, understaffed hospitals. This system does not work and will not solve our nation’s problems. We all want equality, but this is not it.
http://www.neoperspectives.com/britishhealthcare.htm

Harry Potter most certainly is for everyone Kevin. And if you’d like to not talk about or act on the parallels between Harry Potter and issues of social justice then more power to you! As you said, Harry Potter is for everyone. So please, by all means, go for it and enjoy Harry Potter without tying it into politics. The Harry Potter Alliance is only one of countless ways to creatively approach Harry Potter and the fandom. I think, and I’m biased, but personally I think that we’re pretty awesome. But please by all means do your thing!

Many of those with the loudest voices and the most money who are FOR health care reform are also spreading absolute lies. It is important to remember that there are crazies at all points on the political spectrum. I would be interested to hear what people here believe the lies are, and I would love to respond with my side of them. I’m sure that some of the lies are really lies, but I am also sure that some of them are not. One of the things I enjoy doing is debating in an honest, civil way, and since health care reform is an issue I am particularly passionate about, I am pleased to argue my point and hear the points of others.

On a slightly unrelated note: I feel that most people are for health care reform. However, health care reform has come to refer to nationalized health care, which isn’t the same thing. I believe that health care needs reform, but I do not think that nationalizing health care is the way to go. So I think it needs to be kept in mind that most conservatives DO want to change the current system. We realize that it is messed up and want to fix it. We are not all rich, old, white men who want to keep the poor man down. Just because we oppose this nationalized health care does not mean that we are opposed to better health care or health care reform in general.

I would also like to thank the Harry Potter fandom for being welcoming of other ideas. Many more liberal places completely shoot down any conservative posts with insults instead of thought out responses, so I am happy to be sharing my views in a more liberal setting where my ideas are welcomed and where I am treated with respect although I think differently than most here. I really do appreciate that.

Andrew, that was beautifully written. It’s amazing that things as gentle and kind as end-of-life counseling should me purposefully misrepresented as forcing euthanasia or lack of care. Fox News and others with them have been efficiently disposing of any atmosphere in which a real discussion can take place, and sending out a call-to-arms, seeding a revolution, all based on lies. It’s understandable that people who believe these lies don’t want to discuss health care, because they feel they and their families’ lives are at risk, and of course lash out in anger, intolerant of anyone who would dare to support what they believe are immoral policies, policies which don’t even exist.

Katy, thanks for wanting to discuss this. I didn’t read Andrews “uninformed” comment to mean conservatives in general, but those that watch Fox News uncritically, and believe the lies they are told. Most of my extended family falls into that group of conservatives, but I certainly know many other conservatives who think, are extremely intelligent, and don’t watch Fox News. They know that what is being said on there right now cannot be discussed, since it is factless and meant simply to enrage.

The claims of what happens in the UK health system is one example. My UK friends keep being dumbfounded at what is being said in the U.S. about the public part of the U.K. health care system. The claims of endless waits, refusal to treat people based on their worth to society, a less developed technology equating the UK with the third world – none of this is true.

I’ll give just one example for now – I have one friend whose mother died of motor neuron disease, and since they are poor they have to use the public system. Her mother got all the tests, all the medication, home nurses, and care while dying, as anyone else with that disease in the UK does, and they paid nothing. They would have gone bankrupt otherwise. The public health system is simply an option, but it works and many people use it.

I’ll address one of the articles from the link you gave, mainly because it’s late and I’m sleepy, but also to not go on too long in one post, which I tend to do lol. The article talking about the young woman with a brain tumor was in no way critical of the UK health system, and it didn’t even unintentionally provide fodder for criticism. It simply said that Meg’s type of tumor is considered inoperable, by almost everybody, and that includes here in the U.S.. She found the doctor and team who had been doing pioneering work in the U.S. on methods to be able to surgically treat such types of tumors. He saved her life. If she had been living in the U.S. at the time of her diagnosis, she still would have had to do research to find this doctor who could help her. That isn’t the fault of either the public or private health systems in the UK, the article was simply describing how this brand new technique saved her life. The part where it says that Britain is catching up does not mean that Britain is inferior to us in level of care, but that it is catching up to this method – and in fact that is a positive thing to say about the UK system, since once the new method is learned there, it will be used.

Going to bed now but I look forward to discussing this with you!

We desperately need health care reform. I love Barney Frank. He is spot on. This is waht happened to me many years ago. I was trying to raise my son as a single divorced mom. Myex who was an abuser managed to try and make me helpless by ruining me financially. I had no money for health insurance for myself. I finally found a clinic that would insure me for a price I could afford. The kicker was this, I had a “preexisting health condition” that is fibrocystic breast disease. So they would ensure every part of my body except my breasts!! Insanity.