St. Croix is a healthy place to live

There has been a lot of media coverage concerning the arguments in front of the Supreme Court this week that review the individual mandate to purchase health insurance in the Affordable Care Act.

i've been reading up on the issue and have been struck by comments coming from right wing spokespersons and ordinary citizens speaking their minds in different venues.

One conservative politician seemed to think that American lives would be shorter if the Affordable Care Act remains in place. He claimed that Canadians and English that want to live longer come to the US for care. So i decided to look it up and as it turns out Canada is number 12 for long life and England is 30. All the top ten have some sort of Universal Health Care that is paid for out of taxes while the US languishes at 50^th place.

The idea that the US is the best nation in the world for health care really needs addressing. If being best has to do with longevity then we are far, far, far from being even in the top ten. i looked this up first by Googling and found reference to a study looking at the years 2005-2010 for all the countries of the world. During my examination i was shocked and pleasantly surprised by the statistics but wanted more info. So i went to the CIA's World Factbook https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html and found the nation had dropped down more slots from the first study i looked at.

Amazingly, and this was completely new to me, i found that the US Virgin Islands are a better place to live for longevity than in the United States. The VI is 39^th and Puerto Rico is 44^th . Wouldn't this be a great marketing asset? Come and live in the Virgin Islands because according to the CIA's world wide analysis you may live longer.

Personally i've always thought life here is healthier than in the states but after reading the list i now have proof.

There were 9 Magnificent Frigates but I missed one

Regarding the court case, i have never been in favor of the Individual Mandate preferring a nation wide single payer system where everyone contributes through taxes. If you look at the top ten on the list they are living years longer than we are with some form of single payer or universal health care. Why we continue to believe we are number one when the evidence goes against it and even our own agency publishes the fact that we aren't just boggles the mind.

The idea of being forced to buy insurance is not what is disagreeable as we already do that here with automobile insurance. Its the fact that health care is different from every other commodity and insurance companies making money off our illness puts an added cost burden on all of us. If you took out the profit motive for insurance companies we would probably be paying less in overall taxes than we do in insurance and taxes combined. Doctors would have less stress filling out one form instead of multiple forms and hospitals could collect the money they need to operate instead of arguing with insurance companies over payouts. We have the highest health costs in the world and rank 50^th. You would think with the highest costs we would be number one. Well we aren't and we continue to slide downward.

Today is the last day of arguments at the Supreme Court and everyone that cares about health care is watching. The Affordable Care Act is just the beginning of trying to get more Americans covered. There are aspects that all of us can love and hate in this bill but i think most of us would agree the insurance companies have a strangle hold over all of us that does not make the nation healthier.

See ya next week.

Bananaquit caught in a Hurricane Lamp (saved by me)