It is sad of late to hear some people so against some sort of universal health care. I see MA is going that route and maybe people just don’t want everyone to be covered and healthy. I am sick of reading people saying that, “well if you work then you have health insurance”, or the well “companies take care of their employees already” what are these people crazy?? Take for example my wife, almost no Dental Hygenists get insurance. Or several of our friend who are in normal non-government/state jobs who would have to give up a 1/3 of their salaries for coverage. Just crazy stuff……
One more thing, why is it always the men that say women who give birth should not have any sort of government paid leave? Interesting since men can’t give birth that they expect some people to go back to work right after this life changing event. The family leave act is a joke, yes you get the time but almost no companies pay you so can you really take the time. It would be nice if we followed Sweden or the dozens of other countries that offer government paid time off, I guess it shows how little some people value the ability to be able to spend time with ones newborns.
Further Ramblings on this subject, definitely read Dave’s comment it is a good one.:
As our good friend Dave points out, MA is trying something and it is not universal but has brought a LOT of talk lately about how the health care system is zany which is a good thing.
I agree Paternal leave should be their, and by that I mean whatever partner did not give birth. But my second rambling is more about how a women who gives birth is expected to come to work the very next day. Very few companies give any sort of payed recoperation time, nor insurance, and neither does the govement. Just seems insane that this is not covered in some way across the board, ie. you give birth, you get 2 weeks off instantly.
The entire craziness that follows in getting the proper amount of time off to raise ones child (both partners) whether by birth, adoption, transfer, is a subject for a new post in the future, which I plan on stealing some of Daves comments for 🙂
Country Hill Casa 
Universal Health Care in MA. Isn’t. I’m not really sure where you stand on the system newly devised in MA, but it really isn’t universal health care. It’s basically a tax on the working poor and the wealthy. Those who _do_ work but can’t afford the cost of healthcare are suddenly finding themselves with another bill to pay for inadequate services, while the wealthy are now forced to pay into an inneffective healthcare system that is more expensive in many ways than just taking care of it with their own wealth.
Also there hasn’t been a reciprocating rise in doctors, nurses, and health care services to compensate for legal requirement to be covered by a very broken and ill concieved health care system. There hasn’t been a reciprocating decrease in the cost of care, treatments, or medicines. Furthermore we live in a society where the business of medicine is taken more seriously than the medicine itself. It seems a little fishy to me that the same state that has made it illegal to purchase drugs made in Canada for significantly less money, (even taking in consderation the cost of the purchases to transport said drugs,) has made it mandatory that its citizens purchase and pay into helath care. This smacks of fulfilling the interests of parties other than those purchasing the healthcare.
Similarly a state that placed the health of its citizens so high as to jeapordize their capacity to pay their bills and save up for the inescape future costs they will incur as they age would work equally hard to promote the best kind of general medicine: preventative. This would include serving healthy foods in the schools, while not promoting the sale of such standard culinary villains as sodas and candy bars in vending machines (and all of their associated contents)
I agree with you about the sad state of parental leave. Notice I said parental leave. While generally (and this includes my time in the private sector) people tend to dislike but tolerate women taking maternity leave, MUCH fewer places will allow for paternity leave. Typically only unionized work forces will allow it. Even though the father didn’t bring the littl ebrat to term it is just as important for the child to have its father. It is also likely that the father will need his own rest from the stress of dealing with a new child coming into this world.
In an age that generally sees childbearing and childbirth as a woman’s miracle, especially given the rise in and general acceptance of single mother parenting (the mention of which should in no way be taken as a condemnation of the situation on my part, just a relating of the fact of the situation) tends to marginalize a father’s role in bringing up and supporting the life of a newborn.
Blah.