Americans like a good fight. If there ain't one there, sometimes we just make one up. That's the story of today's healthcare reform.
Some people want private insurance. Others want a public plan. Now everybody's screaming about their rights.
Are some rights right and others wrong? People seem to jump on the idea that if one group gets what they want, the other group MUST be getting screwed. Why is that?
Our healthcare system is a disaster and just about everybody knows it. We pay twice what the next industrialized country pays for a system that produces health outcomes worse than 71 other counties.1 That's right, 71! We have 50 MILLION citizens without access to primary care, so they just wait until it's a crisis and hit the overburdened hospitals. Every day 10,000 people lose their health insurance and costs for those of us that pay for our insurance go up WAY faster than inflation. My small business plan was raised 26% this year! Medicare and Medicaid are going to bankrupt our government and leave millions with nothing, and hell, about 50% of personal bankruptcies are caused by healthcare costs right now, right here in the U.S.A.
I don't know how a public plan can fairly compete with the private insurance market, and it sure as hell can't work like Medicare with reimbursements being set arbitrarily at less than providers' costs. But the private market screws people every day; dropping sick people, refusing people affordable coverage, and forcing people into making choices that are bad or worse.
We are all Americans. According to the Preamble to the Constitution, our people have a GENERAL WELFARE that is worth working towards and fighting for. So how about we put down the gloves and figure out how to let our neighbors have the freedom we are so fond of screaming about, fix a broken system, and make our great country a better place for all?
1 The World Health Report 2000, World Health Organization
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We ( Americans) have better survival rates than europeans for common cancer, we have lower cancer mortality rates than canadians,better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries, better access to preventive cancer screening than canadians and the list goes on and on. People in countries with more Gov. control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed, can you say private ins? www.hoover.org/publications/digest/49525427.html
Who's not letting your neighbors have freedom? Since when did we ban healthcare? Obamacare will be written by a committee whose head john conyers says he doesnt understand it, it'll be passed by a congress that hasn't read it, signed by a president who smokes, funded by a treasury chief who didnt pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese and financed by a country that is broke. What could possibly go wrong?
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