The human condition does not change based on where you live. No state should be able to pass any law that restricts health care options to address any medical condition a person may have.
A pregnant woman is pregnant whether she lives in California, Montana, Texas, Florida, or New York. Her condition does not change based on the state of her residency. Consequently, the health care services available to her for the pregnancy – which is between her and her doctor – should be uniformly equal regardless of where she lives.
Your Human Condition Does Not Change At the State Line
We all have a human condition. The condition, who we are and how we identify, can change over the years as we age and mature. Your human condition encompasses both your physical and mental states. Your identity is part of your human condition. While your human condition may be influenced by where you live, it is fundamentally you, no matter where you are.
The human condition, your human condition, is more complicated and larger than most people can comprehend. Our health care system has evolved to address a wide range of situations associated with our human condition. Whether it is preventive medicine or therapeutic treatments, the goal of health care is to keep you healthy, productive, and sustainable within your human condition.
Unfortunately, our current climate of polarized political division is empowering elected state officials to restrict people from receiving the health care they need. These politicians are applying their own prejudices to restrict the health care for human conditions they just do not understand or are hostile towards.
Some States Depreciate The Human Condition
In the 21st century of the United States, it is indeed odd that the human condition is not universally recognized as superseding any religion or state line. Put another way, human rights should not be depreciated by crossing a state line. How can a person receive medical care in one state, but have that same health care forbidden just a mile away in another state? The only answer I can deduce is that under the banner of states’ rights, lawmakers are injecting their prejudicial and discriminatory religious beliefs into the health care system.
The result of the discriminatory legislation is that people who exhibit a human condition of being pregnant, gay, and transgender are being denied medical care.
Depression can be part of your human condition. Depression can prevent you from being healthy – mentally and physically. Depression, if left untreated, will affect your productivity and sustainability.
Laws To Treat Pregnancy and Sexuality Health Care Services Differently
Experiencing gender dysphoria where you identify as a gender different from your birth is a human condition. Just like depression, if gender dysphoria or identifying as transgender is not addressed, it will have adverse effects on the person’s health, which leads to a lack of productivity and sustainability.
Unlike depression, which is a universally accepted human condition, some people want to ignore the physical and mental health care necessary for addressing the transgender condition. Some people, elected officials specifically, want to punish transgender people by denying them health care services. The denial of health care is about as cruel as it gets, next to torture.
Many people drink alcoholic beverages. Some people have the human condition of being an alcoholic. There are certain religions that prohibit the consumption of alcohol. However, we have not seen any widespread campaign to deny health care services to people suffering from alcoholism because some religions find alcohol objectionable.
An alcoholic residing in any state can get treatment. This is not the case for pregnant women, gays and lesbians, or transgender individuals. An alcoholic does not need to leave their home state to get the proper health care to get them healthy, productive, and sustainable. Why must pregnant women, and people who identify as other than the traditional heterosexual profile, leave their states to get health care?
As a health insurance health agent, people come to me for assistance with finding a health plan that fits them. I have learned first-hand the incredible variety of states of the human condition. Some people are cancer survivors and patients. Some people are wealthy and others are income challenged. They are gay, straight, pregnant, transgender, old, young, married, and divorced. Some people are grappling with chronic conditions from birth, others have a recent diagnosis of a debilitating illness.
For most of my clients, I am blind to their appearance. Most of our conversations, and ensuing health plan enrollments are over the phone. I never meet the people in person. I never see their image or how they present themselves.
It does not matter that I cannot see the people. It does not matter whether I agree with them on matters of politics or religion. I am not here to discriminate based on their human condition or judge their lifestyle. I am here to provide a service.
Doctors, nurses, and other health care providers generally do not discriminate. They care about the person’s human condition to the extent that it impacts treatment options. They are there to provide a service of delivering health care treatments to keep the person healthy. I am perplexed as to why some politicians need to interfere in the delivery of medical services.
The denial of health care services based on a specific human condition is very dangerous. It is reminiscent of the discriminatory laws targeting Black Americans and Asian immigrants. The Jim Crow and Anti-Chinese laws were based on the belief that those individuals were less than human. They were meant to marginalize the individuals with the hope they would leave their proximity to white people.
Equal Access To Health Care Services, Regardless of State
The Affordable Care Act was the attempt to make health care homogeneous throughout the United States. It was based on the belief that regardless of what state you resided in, you are entitled to receive health care appropriate for your medical condition. Now, politicians with visceral animus towards people they cannot empathize with, are fervently working to create a disparate health care system that recognizes only a specific class of people in the United States.
I do not have faith in the current U.S. Supreme Court to recognize that the human condition and equitable access to health care supersedes states’ rights. I can only place my faith in the voters of those states, affected by discriminatory laws that prevent pregnant women and transgender individuals from receiving proper health care, to vote out politicians who refuse to recognize that the denial of health care services is not within their purview.
Basic human rights and equal access to health care services is nonnegotiable. There can be no compromise. State’s rights do not supersede human rights. The goal of health care is to keep people healthy, productive, and sustainable. No state law should prevent a person from receiving care to remain healthy, productive, and sustainable.
