unhealthy debate
The current national discussion of health care has been marked by awful lies and incredible stupidity. Trying to keep up with the debate is a mentally punishing task. I mean, who can stand having to listen to stuff like this?
This is the level of deep thinking displayed by opponents of healthcare reform.
Elsewhere, other health care reform opponents are engaged in flat-out lying and fearmongering about universal health care systems elsewhere in the world, and making absurd declarations that our current system is “the finest in the world”.
Our health care system is not the best, nor even close, on any objective measure.
- We have shittier outcomes for things like life expectancy and infant mortality than any number of other “civilized” countries
- We have hordes of uninsured people without regular access to preventive care, which is of course cheaper than emergency response care
- We have even more middle-class folks who are underinsured and can be driven to bankruptcy and family disaster by medical costs
- Even people with wonderful health insurance (like me) are constrained from changing jobs or starting small businesses because health insurance is tied to employment, and you often can’t change insurance if you have a “pre-existing condition”.
For the privilege of maintaining this shitty, unfair, godawful system, we pay twice as much for healthcare as the rest of the world.
Don’t mistake me for a fan of the currently proposed reforms; they don’t go nearly far enough, and any serious attempts at reform will be blocked by craven “centrist” Democrats, not by the universally despised Republican congressional minority. This is not a Democrats-vs-Republicans, liberals-vs-conservatives question; neither group wants to upset their corporate donors by disrupting the profit flow to HMOs and the like.
The question is: will we build access to health care into the basic infrastructure of our country, like roads and schools and law enforcement? Or will we punt and keep our terrible, unfair system in place for another 15 or 20 years before reform can be considered again?
Even though this administration hasn’t gone “far enough,” it has already made a significant effort in salving the dilemma. For example, we are only required to pay 35% of COBRA since Danny’s unfortunate (ahem) “job change.” There is no way in hell that we would have been able to afford the full COBRA price tag. 35%? That is doable. But won’t last forever.
If a package is passed, you can bet it will be jammed full of tweaks and pet programs demanded by every single congressman on behalf of their constituents. I’m convinced that the only reason our healthcare system is not the best is because our political system is so corrupted. This makes me feel pretty certain that any attempt at positive reforms is futile.
I’m trying not to be that cynical. It’s tempting, though.
This guy pretty much nails down the kinds of reforms I’d like to see.