Insurance for all

Lets talk about Roberto, Alex and Marie.

Each has a contagious disease.

Roberto is an illegal immigrant and works as a bus boy in a restaurant. He has no health insurance. He goes to a doctor and fills out the form, and gives it to the clerk. She sees that he has no insurance and tells him the doctor is not seeing any more patients that day so he takes a bus to the emergency room. He fills out the form there and waits over two hours because he is not an emergency and goes home. He goes to work the next day even though he is sick.

Alex works at a supermarket, filling in the fruit bins, and occasionally works the cheese slicer. He goes to the doctor and
because he has no health insurance does not get to see the doctor. He takes the train to the emergency room and after a two hour wait gets a bed and gets looked at. They have him stay at emergency for six hours, take a lot of tests and send him home with antibiotics. You the taxpayer pick up the tab.

Marie is a nanny for a very wealthy family and takes care of their two-year-old daughter. She is afraid if she tells her employers she feels sick they will fire her so she does nothing.

Who knows how many people these people made sick?

The savings in health care costs come not from denying people treatment, but from preventing the spread of disease and early detection of disease.