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(This is not my work. This is from a friend of mine who blogs on his Facebook account. This is posted with his permission. I do not agree entirely with the contents of this post, but I believe the post brings up pertinent points to discuss.)

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Health care is a really confusing and difficult issue and pretty much the only one that I've never claimed to know how to fix. (Right?) But, since everyone is in the same boat, I'm going to offer my thoughts anyway.

I have a lot of elderly friends at church and we sit together after Mass eating donuts. Whenever the topic of health care has come up in the past few months, the response has been extremely odd. Their first and main concern is, that they think that Medicare will be cut if we pass the health care plan. Let me rephrase this: they are afraid of Democrats cutting Medicare, and think they can trust the Republicans to guard their interests.

Their next concern is that we are making America socialist. This is coming from people who have collected from Social Security, 5-10 times what they put in, and whose precious Medicare is heavily subsidized at taxpayer expense.

Huh??

Thought #1: Have any overall opinion of the Democrats you want, but regardless, the idea that you can trust Republicans to guard Medicare's funding better, is stupid. And both parties are very much afraid of you anyway. So don't worry.

Thought #2: Ranting against socialism while cashing Social Security checks is hypocritical.

Thought #3: Our European allies, Britain, France and Germany, etc. have fought communism with us for decades. They all have "socialist" public health care systems that are working no worse than ours if not better.

Thought #4: It's true that we have the best medical care in the world. But you and I don't get that care. We get the 2nd or 3rd tier, sometimes the 4th tier. By the time you get in to see a doctor, you've gotten better because it's been a week! So who gets the benefit of our top surgeons and hospital facilities? The rich. They can buy whatever they want and yes, it's awesome care, but so what?

Okay, back to my elderly friends. The next thing they say is that they worry about "rationing healthcare". They fear a board of faceless bureaucrats deciding who gets care, and therefore, who lives and who dies. "OMG, how can they put a price on life??" As if we haven't had military bureaucrats sending our soldiers into harm's way for the past 8 years, while Halliburton (Dick Cheney's company) made billions in profit.

At this point I draw the line.

Thought #5: I respond, Hello! I'm working and I have Blue Cross. I already have a corporation, with a faceless board, making decisions over health care, deciding who gets what they need and who doesn't. And this board literally gets paid when they deny expensive life-saving treatment. So I ask: Accepting the reality that there are limited health care resources in our country and therefore, there must be a board somewhere that makes such decisions,

Who do you want to trust with those decisions? Liberal Democrats? Or corporate executives?

I'm referring to the same corporate executives, who hand out bonuses to the employees that have screwed over the most paying clients. When questioned directly about this before Congressional committee, and asked to promise to stop this practice (called rescission), all refused.
http://www.greenchange.org/article.php?id=4538

This has always derailed the conversation. Because honestly, what do you think? Don't you want that life-saving board to be full of "liberal" people who will say Yes to you and your loved ones, and worry about the cost later?

Thought #6: We should always start analysis of a problem by asking, is this really significant? Is there really something wrong? In my high school debate, this was called "Significance". Because if it isn't broken, you don't go trying to fix it.

Here is a quick list of what I see as the significant effects of our for-profit health care system. I will return to this point in my next blog because I feel a need to nail the items down with actual numbers - yet at the same time I want to post this asap.

* The system is covering fewer and fewer people. Between 30-40 million uninsured American citizens, depending who does the counting.

* Timeliness and quality of service is down. I know that personally and you probably do too.

* Since 1980, health care costs have increased much faster than inflation. The total effect is staggering.

* Costs continue to rise every year with no end in sight.

* The number of doctors is going down each year, even as the need for health care goes up.

* This is only the tip of the iceberg! Our society ages every year. Decreased supply, increase demand = rising prices.



The real bottom-line issue is that our for-profit health care system is failing and is completely unprepared for the next decade.

Can anyone honestly and rationally challenge that statement?

Thought #7: I wish I was talking about the auto industry, so that I could say, "So what? Let them ride bikes!" But I'm not. This is health care. People will live longer and better or suffer more and die early based on our decision on this.

If this is the situation, why would anyone defend the status quo and insist on doing nothing?

By the way, have you noticed that we never actually say the words "for-profit health system"? Yet that's precisely what it is. Health care is provided primarily by companies and individuals seeking profits. But we're don't verbalize that. Interesting.

To be continued!

If you want to comment, please do so according to what is HERE. That is, refer your comment to a thought #. If you want to talk about a point I haven't covered yet, please wait. Write it in your notes and save it. I will most likely get there in the next blog or two. I'm taking this step-by-step and you will confuse and distract people if you get ahead of me. And the last thing we need is more confusion, right? The question "Is there really a problem with health care?" is surely enough to keep you busy.