Current Citizenship
According to The New York Times, the Obama administration is planning on terminating health insurance for over 100,00 people because they could not prove they were legal immigrants or United States citizens on October 1, 2014. According to the administration, they asked the 966,000 people who had discrepancies in their records to send documents to clear up these discrepancies. Most people did, however 115,000 were not successful. Lawyers who were working with some of those 115,000 people say that their clients tried to submit the correct documents, but they experienced problems either uploading them through HealthCare.gov or mailing them to a federal contractor. A lot of those people tried multiple times to get the correct documents where they needed to be, but were never successful.
This issue proposes the questions of what rights one has as a citizen and how much control the government has in the lives of its citizens. Does the government have the right to take away the health care of those who could not provide the proper documentation, even if, in some cases, the documentation was not provided due to a technical or governmental issue? Does the government have the right to give the health care to people who could not provide the proper documentation to begin with? These questions are very important for the time I am spending abroad in Venice, because if something happens to me where I need health care, I want to know that I am covered and not taking advantage of the system.
One thing that this reminds me of is Plato’s idea about what it means to be a good citizen. Plato believes that specialization is the key to good citizenship. People should do what they know they are good at and stay away from trying to do a lot of things that they are just average at. There needs to be a couple of people who are just in charge of making sure that the website works or that the paperwork that is mailed is being received and filed correctly so there are not problems like this again in the future. In this issue of health insurance, it is both the job of the citizens as well as the government to resolve the issue and to be able to avoid it in the future.
This issue proposes the questions of what rights one has as a citizen and how much control the government has in the lives of its citizens. Does the government have the right to take away the health care of those who could not provide the proper documentation, even if, in some cases, the documentation was not provided due to a technical or governmental issue? Does the government have the right to give the health care to people who could not provide the proper documentation to begin with? These questions are very important for the time I am spending abroad in Venice, because if something happens to me where I need health care, I want to know that I am covered and not taking advantage of the system.
One thing that this reminds me of is Plato’s idea about what it means to be a good citizen. Plato believes that specialization is the key to good citizenship. People should do what they know they are good at and stay away from trying to do a lot of things that they are just average at. There needs to be a couple of people who are just in charge of making sure that the website works or that the paperwork that is mailed is being received and filed correctly so there are not problems like this again in the future. In this issue of health insurance, it is both the job of the citizens as well as the government to resolve the issue and to be able to avoid it in the future.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/16/us/us-to-end-coverage-under-health-care-law-for-tens-of-thousands.html