Healthcare and NASA

So, being pregnant requires me to see a midwife every so often to make sure things are going well. Being pregnant has given me an opportunity to see how this free health care works. I must say that Brandon and I are liking the system over here. Before you cry out "socialist!" here my thoughts.

So far I have not had to deal with waiting long hours for appts. and dealing with people who don't know what they are talking about. Here in Geelong you have a private hospital and a public hospital. What is nice about Geelong is that if the public hospital can't help you they send you to the private one and it is still free. If you want to use the private hospital for all of your worries and woes you have to pay for the health insurance. Public, of course, is free. We are using the public system for this baby, and so far I can't complain.

There are three different routes you can take during your pregnancy.

1. See a doctor every time
2. Shared care, see a midwife and a GP
3. See a midwife.
I decided to go with number 3, but have the baby in the hospital (could have decided to have it at a birthing clinic if I wanted). So far the midwives have been great and I feel like the service is the same as it was back home.

Now some people over here like to think Australia as found the perfect system, public for all and pay extra for the posh private. I see their system being in the middle, with the US on one side and Canada on the other. Canada being totally socialist, not allowing private health care (so I have heard) and the US focusing more on the private and only those who have really low incomes getting the public.

There are problems with Australia's system that some people I have talked to don't see. First, Australia has the population on greater LA. Any system will work better and faster on a smaller scale. There are not as many people to take advantage of it and to clog the system. Secondly, you can still get some pretty long waiting lines for certain services. Getting in to see a public dentist takes being on a waiting list for awhile, so I have heard.

Of course the US and Canada have their problems as well. I see particularly the rising cost of health care in the US. We were paying $500 a month for awhile before Brandon was hired on at Delphi and we were not going for the best of the best. My aunt and uncle have had many problems because their son has asthma.

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NASA - I think it should be downsized. Just read an article about Lake Vostok, the underground lake in Antarctica that was recently discovered. I think giving so much money to NASA is a waste when we are finding things like this on our own planet. There is so much of the ocean that still has not been looked at as well. Give some of NASA's money to exploring our own planet. I really don't care so much about planets and trying to find organisms on them when we still have plenty to discover at home. To me it seems NASA spends a lot of money trying to prove there is life outside of earth, that we are not alone. I say let the aliens spend the money to contact us, why should we do all the work? Let them chip in a bit. Where are all their signals and little metal gifts being sent to us? Haven't seen many. We have sent plenty, shows how much they appreciate them, that is if they are out there. I guess you could argue they are shy but hey we don't need to hold their hand. They must come out of their extraterrestrial shell in their own time.

Oh, and a tighter budget for NASA would probably help. They would treasure their expeditions that much more and choose which ones to carry out with greater scrutiny.