61 Sick Years

In 1948 Harry Truman called for national health care. In the sixty one years since, the United States has become isolated as the only developed nation without a national health care system. Our costs are the highest per capita in the world, while our outcomes barely make the top 40. People are suffering and dieing as a direct result of no health care.

Congressional leaders, especially in the GOP, are urging caution. Asking for more time to study the issue they are clearly in stall mode. If there is any member of Congress that is unfamiliar with the issues of health care by now they should immediately resign their office.

What these individuals really want is a delay in any efforts to stop the gravy train. Insurance companies and health care corporations are both enormously profitable even in these economic times. Part of the reason is the favorable legislation directed their way by the politicians whose political careers are funded by a steady delivery of dollars from these same corporations.

Do these people work for us or for corporations?

The very fact that those in opposition to health care reform are trying to portray a public option insurance program as the government taking over health care shows only the lengths to which they will go to destroy any possibility of change. A public option serves only to keep the insurance companies honest. Health care will not change one bit because of this, only the cost of insurance and profit margins will be affected. Evidence to support this contention includes the enormous amounts of money the insurance companies are spending to sabotage any public option.

Health care reform has to change the very way medicine is practiced in America. Rather than a CYA approach that focuses on every diagnostic test imaginable and billable procedures, a focus on outcome would significantly lower the costs.

Finally, as has been noted in this column on several occasions, the writer supports true socialized medicine with doctors on the payroll. That is not going to happen in the U.S. but consider this: the nations with the best outcomes are those with socialized medicine. Those who bemoan government health care always complain that government bureaucrats will make health care decisions. As opposed to the accountants who work for the insurance companies?

Is there anyone who seriously believes that Europeans have poor health care?

To reform health care in this country the first surgery that must be performed is to remove the hands of the politicians from the pockets of the insurance companies.