By Charlie Meyer:
Is the new health care reform bill perfect? No, but Rome wasn't built in a day either. It's lengthy and complex, as there are no ditsy Nancy “Ask my astrologer” Reagan's simpleton “Just Say No” one line answers to the most important issue facing these United States. The American Medical Association and the American Association of Retired Persons gave their support; realizing you have to start somewhere instead of doing nothing but biting your tongue because the Emperor's Geranimals really don't match. What options do the “Town Hall Screamers” give us? The GOP “Plan”: 1. Stay Well, 2. Be Rich, or 3. Die Quickly. I'm still waiting for the entirely fictitious figment of my wise guy imagination, the “GOP-NRA Health Plan”, where House Minority Leader Rep. John “I had a tortured adolescence with an easily mispronounced last name” Boehner, and Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association would have their own “public option”...a pistol with one round on a table for hospital patients who aren't filthy rich “to do the right thing.” Messy and noisy, on second thought. Maybe the Brits have some leftover cyanide “L” pills issued to SOE agents behind enemy lines in the Second World War. The Brits aren't scared to death with the idea of an expensive stay in the hospital, they have the NHS. Millions of them are still standing, by the way. Those Canadians headed south for the winter aren't desperately rushing to an appointment with a Florida health provider. Nor should we replace that antiquated Hippocratic Oath with something more profitable, such as the Hypocricy Oath: “Please pay first before pumping.”?
Remember the movie “Animal House”, where actor Kevin Bacon plays a ROTC cadet telling a panic-driven parade mob that: “All is well!”, before being trampled flat? Hey, American health care is broken, no matter how much Conservative gaity is found at the Aft First Class Bar on the Titanic. Psst: Capitalist demigod Adam Smith wasn't a physician. Being “your brother's keeper” isn't just for church on Sunday, no matter how “blessed you are that God meant you to be rich.” “I made my pile, up yours!” isn't in any of the Good Book's chapters, the last time I looked. Is there a “Glenn Beck Version” Bible? Lighter, easier to carry; I hear there's no appendix. Next week is Thanksgiving. Despite the initial horror upon discovering that Sarah Palin briefly attended my Alma Mater in Honolulu after I graduated, at least she left long before earning a degree. “Leaving early” ... that's our gal. I'll kindly remember that when the next alumni shakedown arrives in my mailbox. I'm “thankful.”
Health care reform is a very big, complex deal, but as I recall, we managed to do other complicated things, such as putting man on the moon. We're gonna have to do something about rackets such as the $2,995 “sleep study”. I did find humor in my wise guy answer of creating an alternative to the pricey sleep apnea CPAP gizmo by hooking the hose to the discharge side of my Shop Vac, a classic implement of Guydom, and duct taping the other end of the hose over my mouth and nose. No, huh? I'll assume the new hospital is nice inside; I know even turning on to Pin Oak Lane would compel me to see a bankruptcy lawyer. I don't know if there's a billing for the Maryland State Police medivac helicopter that has some of the hospital's neighbors cranky; in places that don't engage in such rampant “welfare state socialism”, the private whirly-bird ride costs about nine grand before the pilot twists and yanks the collective to get the aircraft off the ground. Hey, if it looks like I'll need help at the scene that fast, call Doc Adams, the horse veterinarian, and his truck.
Remember the story of “Little Red Riding Hood?” Some of the commercials touting the need for health care reform are coming from the Drag Queen wolves in Grandma's clothing and our answer to the Columbian drug cartel's profitability: the pharmaceutical industry. Real health care reform means everyone has to ante up something valuable to sit at the table. No golf mulligans. If one wants a fat jackpot, play the lottery. I just love those Right wing scare ads about the geeky bureaucrat with a bow tie “interfering” between a physician and his patient. Ask your physician about health insurers meddling in your health care. It was an eyeopener working in the health insurance industry. (Motto: “How can we weasel out of paying your claim?”) Life is never boring when you just know your health insurer is probably related to Shylock in Shakespeare's “The Merchant of Venice.”
Our health care system is bloated and inefficient. We need to cut the waste that adds nothing but heartache and frustration. Let's rein in the insurers and HMOs, who add little, if any, value, and too much drama, to our health. Next, let's give the greedy pharmaceutical industry a civics lesson in what the Constitution says about patent rights. What part of “limited times” don't they understand? Has greed blinded them as it has with the insurers? Even in the saloon trade, sampling your own wares doesn't necessarily count as “quality control.” Bad juju for continued employment for us slingers of gin. President Truman wanted to do something to fix health care sixty years ago; the Red-baiters of his day stood in the way of progress, and it's only gotten worse. The GOP still thinks it's not a problem. Come to think of it, the GOP was the problem then, and remains the problem today. You're either part of the solution, or part of the problem.
Health Care Reform Now!
By Stephen Smoot:
In an early 1942 Ottawa press conference, a reporter bluntly asked British Prime Minister Winston Churchill how long he expected the war to last. Always incisive, even when non committal, Churchill declared “if we manage it well, it will only take half as long as if we manage it badly.” So far the United States has seen over a year of economic meltdown. The media hail the prospect of a halt to worsening conditions in more positive terms than real growth and low unemployment five years ago. America needs responsible leadership with a realistic assessment of our resources and a commitment to preserving freedom. Instead we get a proposal for a $1 trillion (at the very least) health care overhaul. This bill bristles with new restrictions, taxes, and even criminal punishment for the decision to not purchase a commodity.
Not only does the health plan that Obama, Pelosi, and Reid propose reek of outdated left wing ideology, it will put another torpedo into the side of this sinking ship of a national economy. Even worse, it will give Americans an inferior system that cares less and regulates more. Something must be done about the rising cost of health care and the burden it places on many Americans. A bad plan is worse than no plan at all and this is a crazy quilt of sanctions and bad ideas from a multitude of sources. Dr. David Gratzer spent years working in the Canadian health care system routinely cited as a model by the left. He quoted the head of the Canadian Medical Association in a November 10th article as saying “We all agree that the system is imploding. We all agree that things are perhaps more precarious than Canadians realize.” In many small Canadian towns, a visit to the family doctor comes after a lottery process because the government decided Canada had a glut of expensive physicians. Other supporters of Obama care always want to cite the British example. In Britain 36,000 people went blind in the past two years because their government health care bureaucracy dithered over whether or not to approve the use of Lucentis sheerly because of cost. Last summer after mounting political pressure, they gave in and approved its use. Towards the end of each year as the national dental work quota has been used up, many suffering Britons are forced to extract their own teeth, according to the London "Times."
The current health proposals before Congress include even more draconian and bizarre ideas, such as forcing people to purchase health care under threat of fines and/or jail time. When did these people forget that they represented the people of a free country. The fact is that they know full well that such a provision will eventually be stricken down as unconstitutional. This creates a shortfall which would lead to two results. One is drastically higher taxes; the other is increasingly restricted care as the British and Canadians now have.
Our health care debate actually has ramifications beyond our borders. Already this year, international finance experts noted a power shift. Obama and Congress have run up record deficits by fixing a few roads but also giving millions to ACORN and studies such as one on prostitutes in Argentina. To pay for all this waste, Obama sent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to China to kowtow and beg for money (this is one of the only important jobs he assigned ton her.) China reluctantly loaned us the money, but grows increasingly concerned about the safety of their investment. Amazingly last week the Communist country cautioned Obama about this huge expansion of government control over the US economy. Americans must realize a sobering fact that the more money Obama begs from China, the more that country has control over our domestic and foreign affairs. This $1 trillion proposal is probably more than China will be willing to loan and a lot more than American taxpayers can bear. Absolutely we need health care reform. Our goal ought to be that every working American has the opportunity to buy insurance (I agree that children, the elderly, and veterans ought to be covered when they cannot pay for their own.) Dr. Doug McKinney, a physician and West Virginia Republican Party chair, noted that lawsuit reform in West Virginia led to a minimum 40% drop in the amount that doctors must pay in malpractice insurance coverage. If implemented nationwide, this would drop medical and insurance costs, enabling insurance to be more affordable for people with lower incomes. Dr. McKinney also notes that fear of lawsuits results in billions of dollars spent for what he calls “defensive medicine.” A skillful attorney does not have to rely on science in a court case.
Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards made millions convincing juries that infant cerebral palsy, actually caused by infections, was created by the negligence of OB/GYNs. As a result, doctors perform thousands of unnecessary Caesarian sections yearly. How much did this one slick liberal cost the American health care system? Other ideas can keep insurance in the private sector and decrease costs. Expanding the concept of tax free health care accounts is an option. Those with higher incomes can contribute to a tax free account of money to pay for routine health issues while saving traditional insurance for catastrophic matters. Paying on a cashlike basis reduces the complexity of insurance billing and reduces costs. Other experts suggest that state barriers in the insurance industry need to come down. Regulatory changes coupled with tax incentives can encourage small businesses to join pools that will create employee insurance plans, but not bankrupt them. The Obama-Pelosi-Reid plan will impose heavy new taxes on small business, crippling their ability to hire more people even though this sector hires and employs more people than anyone else in the economy.
In a perfect world everyone gets what they want and no one has to pay. In our real world nothing comes for anyone unless someone pays for it. Private sector reforms that aim at cutting down bureaucracy and lawsuit abuse will mean that more Americans can obtain the current high quality health care that we have now. The Obama plan only takes us down the painful road of mediocre medicine that many countries, to their regret, have already tried.
