Thursday, August 21, 2014

What we deserve....

So, I'm on vacation this week, and while watching the TV today I heard a commercial that piqued my interest.

"... so get the healthcare you deserve..."

It made me chuckle at first, but then I thought about it some more and it bothered me. I guess maybe I'm just to naive, but I've not ever really believed that my generation deserves the "Entitlement Generation" moniker that is so often applied to us. But this has shifted my view a little bit, because it's really made me aware of the issue.

It just made it so clear how often people use that "deserve" term. It's weird, because deserve has such a different meaning than I think people realize.


Deserve - Verb - do something or have or show qualities worthy of (reward or punishment).


See, deserve implies having done something. Having earned something, even. When viewed in that light, that commercial moves from being a humorous testament to the vanity of a few of us to something frighteningly elitist.

See, the implication is this:


You're being kept from the healthcare you deserve!

How?

Well, there's like... paperwork you have to do... and... complicated things... Oh, and doctors can't video chat all the time.... yeah...

But that just looks to me like what happens with any large system...

Yeah... but... OH! You deserve better because you work hard!

But I don't necessarily work in a field that makes me need better.

Yeah, but things are so expensive...

 Well, that's true I suppose...

See! You deserve better!



See, what their argument boils down to is that healthcare is inconvenient, and you deserve convenient healthcare. Not that we'd like convenient healthcare, because I'm sure we all do, but that we deserve it. As though there is something different about us that means we deserve better healthcare than, say, children in Africa. Or people in Central America. Oh, and all the other third world countries. Where in the heck do we get off feeling we deserve better than them?!

As long as there are people in this world who have NO healthcare, I do not DESERVE anything better. I should be happy, and content, and grateful for what I do have, which is a lot! 

I guess my point is this: be grateful for what you have! Realize that what we have here is greater than what basically anyone else in this world has. And before you go around talking about how much better you deserve, be thoughtful of those who, though thy deserve better, have nothing.

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