I peruse the news every morning after I stick a bunch of horses with needles and take their blood. It’s what I do, how I roll. That news is usually from foreign sources because, let’s face it, our mainstream media sucks royally. On my electronic travels passing through the BBC this morning, I happened upon this article concerning Greek healthcare with this picture of a bunch of people spelling “HEALTH IS NOT A LUXURY”.

I will preface the following by saying that I have had a failing liver for nearly twelve years now following an incident in which my lungs collapsed, my liver and kidneys failed, and I went blind, I died a couple of times, and you get the picture. I will spare you the boring details.

My point? Having had seven surgeries since, I am familiar with the costs of healthcare and how extreme their increase has been.

And no, it is not a luxury- but neither is it some endowed right.

We have an obesity rate of nearly one in every three adults in America. A. Third. We eat absolute crap. Sure, we can do these things because we’re free ‘Mercans, but at what point do we hold ourselves accountable for what we do to our bodies?

Seventy-two MILLION Americans were enrolled in Medicaid last year, the highest numbers ever. The same holds true for food stamps, which can be used for all kinds of edible(?) crap. (I’ll save my rant about my belief that food aid should provide seeds and community gardens and prohibit junk food for a later date.)

Guess who becomes ill more…….

Guess who costs the state (read: taxpayers) more…….

Guess one of the reasons health costs rise……..

In a society where politicians share bedsheets with pharmaceutical companies, people sue instead of holding themselves accountable (if you need to be warned that coffee is hot, you’re too stupid to drink it) and cause physicians’ insurance to skyrocket, people overwhelmingly don’t care about preventing disease and illness, wanting only fast cures instead. Personal responsibility is dead.

So yeah, lady, (good) health IS a luxury- one taken for granted far too much.