Random thoughts on health care

I admit it: I don't understand most of those who oppose health care reform. Here are my random thoughts on the topic.

1. Every person who shows up in the ER ready to deliver a baby, or in need of an appendectomy, or dropping pints of blood, or having symptoms of any other medical emergency will receive care, regardless of ability to pay, citizenship status, or anything else. That's the law. There's a cost to that care, which we all absorb in one way or another. Health care reform that aims to create a more efficient system for providing preventative care and providing services more efficiently makes utmost sense.

2. If I didn't have employer-sponsored health insurance, I could barely afford to pay for a private plan that would provide substantially less coverage. If I lost my job, paying the COBRA premium would be a stretch. We are (I think) in at least the top 10% of earners. Are the people who are so vociferously protesting more able to pay? Or do they expect that they will have employer-sponsored insurance. Reality check: EAW, or for laypeople, employment at will. Those without a contract are subject to being terminated at any time. Bye-bye health insurance. Nothing requires an employer to provide health insurance.

3. We like to proclaim that we are a Christian nation (or in more inclusive moments) a Judeo-Christian nation. Let's assume that's a true statement. What's our proof? How do we treat the weakest, neediest people in our nation? What's that parable about the Good Samaritan? Or maybe the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes?

4. The richest nation in the world. The most powerful nation on earth. The best nation--love it or leave it. Pile on the superlatives. But whichever superlative you choose, the fact is the "most-est" nation doesn't provide a means for basic health care for all its citizesns. Lots of "lesser" nations somehow manage to do it.

5. Poor insurance companies; they can't compete if health reform includes a public option. What??? Since when have insurance companies been the poster children for protectionist policies. I thought we welcomed competition. Private schools manage to compete with public schools. Cities like New York, Chicago, and Atlanta haven't seen a wholesale loss of car dealers notwithstanding well-developed and utilized public transportation systems. FedEx and UPS seem to do quite fine, notwithstaning a mandated USPS monopoly. I suppose a public option might mean that private insurance companies might have to come up with innovative ways to compete, but if we're the best in the world, seems like they should welcome the challenge.

6. Rationing? The complaint is that health care reform will result in rationing? So what do insurance companies do if not ration? All insurance companies are fundamentally the same: collect premiums and limit the payment of claims, all in a quest for profit. Need to improve the bottom line? Easy! Simply deny or delay pre-treatment approvals for any number of specious reasons--not medically necessary, experimental, insufficient documentation, not a covered benefit, yada, yada, yada. Rationing by any other name. So who's the better gate-keeper? A profit-motivated company or the government? Neither makes me feel good, but rationing is a reality, and at least the government doesn't have a history of paying million-dollar bonuses to top executives.

I don't know that the current proposal is the best that we can do, but I do believe we have some of the best and brightest minds. I also believe that something has gotta give.