We don't have a health care problem. We have health care and it's some of the best around. What we have, is a problem paying for it. Insurance companies, both for profit and non-profits can barely keep up with the costs that go up quicker than the rate of normal inflation. Even the government can't keep up. Medicare and Medicaid are going broke and many doctors refuse to treat these patients because they lose money. Aggravating the problem is a system that is somewhat open for fraud, waste and abuse. In a word, the health care reimbursement system is broken and way beyond the band-aid stage.
Health care is important to us. Our health and the health of our loved ones is always at the forefront of our minds. We are programmed for survival and when something runs afoul with that program, we want whatever it is that's wrong, fixed. We want it fixed now and we are willing to do what we need to do to get it fixed. We are also programmed for compassion and we don't want to see people needlessly suffer from illness or injury.
I'm not telling you anything new when I tell you that medicine has come along way in the last 100 years. The advances are astounding. As little as 50 years ago, most cancers were a death sentence and a diagnosis meant you had only weeks or months left to live. The best they could do in most cases was to attempt to control your pain. Many cancers today can be fought successfully and patients can remain cancer free for many years. It's curable in many cases and we cure more and learn more every passing year.
It's expensive to train doctors. I don't even pretend to know what it costs, but given the amount of knowledge that must be imparted and the ever improving methods and technologies that must be kept up to date, I'd say that the cost of training a doctor is probably one of the most expensive career paths out there. The expectation is that once they graduate and become full-fledged physicians, they will be able to recoup those costs and be able to provide a comfortable living for them and their families.
It's expensive to be a doctor. Gone are the days of the kindly old family doctor who treated whole families through two or three generations. He charged a reasonable amount for his services and you only went to see him when you actually needed something. Today, we expect every doctor to be omniscient when it comes to our care and we tend to run to them with every ache and sniffle. They must know every new therapy and chemical available or refer us to a specialist who does. We still have family physicians, but they are usually just for the minor stuff. Anything requiring much more than a stitch or an Ibuprofen, we get referred to a specialist. That's our system these days, I guess. It's costly and unwieldy from just about everyone's point of view.
Without insurance, a hospital stay will probably break you if you don't have some form of insurance. They are forced to charge exorbitant rates to make up for the free care they give or the abysmal amounts they get from Medicare. An emergency room visit alone can run into thousands of dollars regardless of whether you are admitted or not. A hospital visit can literally ruin you financially with out insurance.
Add to this the malpractice insurance a doctor and hospital must pay and the cost of everything just doubled. Somehow or another, if we don't get a handle on the financial part of this system, we will have a true crisis in health care.
This is a problem years in the making and a thousand plus page bill that's hastily been cut and pasted together to appease this or that congressman or coalition or caucus is not going to fix it in any way shape or form. To believe that it is to believe that a djini will appear out of that old bottle you found on the beach and grant you three wishes. It's been pointed out that Obama spent several months in search of a dog for his daughters, but wants to pass a bill to "reform" our entire health care system in just a few short weeks. I think it's a reasonable point and this problem should be given more thought than is put into choosing a family pet.
Regardless of their denials, Obama and many Democrats are on record stating that their ultimate goal of government "reform" is a single payer system which means that government is the only game in town. It doesn't work - at least not for long. It will eventually become unwieldy, and instead of an an insurance bureaucrat deciding upon your care, it will be a government bean counter. In Great Britain and every other country that has such a system, they are busily cutting benefits and treatment. It's a fact and it will happen here. For those on Oregon's system, if your treatment is deemed too expensive, you are offered pain pills and end of life counseling. Thanks for playing.
Reform in how health care is funded is needed. No one is saying different. It's the approach that differs. There are other ideas out there, but when you have a President saying he won't listen and it's his way or the highway, you won't get a chance to hear them.
So what's the solution? Is the current bill the only answer? No and only the most die hard partisan will think that it is. Nothing we come up with will be a cure-all, but I think there are some better answers than handing our health care over to the same people that run Medicare and Social Security - both of which are going bankrupt.
Before I leave on Thursday for the other side of the world (ll tell you where next week), I'll try and discuss the solutions. If I don't get it done by then, I'll do so as soon as I am able. I have a lot to do to get ready for this trip and I won't return home until Labor Day weekend.
VW
