So the mighty 9 have made their decision…

In my mind the questions are rooted in…

• Do you believe that basic health care is a right or a privilege?
• If it is a right, where does it end? What is the limit? Are we all entitled to the level of care that medicaid recipients receive, for example?
• If it is a privilege, do we turn people away who can’t pay? Where is that limit?
• If it is a privilege, why do we have to provide it to the poor, the disabled? This particular fight isn’t about them, it’s about the working poor, the lower and maybe middle middle class. But why limit the questions?
• Who provides it (govt vs private industry)?

My perspective is that we(the tax payers) are paying for this anyways. Someone help me if you disagree, I’m trying to work this through. Remember this isn’t about the poor(who we pay for) or the well employed(who pay their way), this is for everyone caught in the middle.  We pay for the people who have no insurance and no ability to pay. We pay for their bankruptcies because they got sick and had no insurance. We pay for their lack of preventative care when they get really sick and it’s more expensive and complicated, because they waited.

Some Interesting Points to Ponder…

I think it’s in part an education issue. It’s a 1-10-100 problem. Any student of quality management (TQM to be specific) knows that to catch a problem early costs $1, the same problem a little later is $10 and then a little later is $100. Scale that to the problem. It’s the same with people. Getting to a doctor or a clinic before your infection spreads is a beautiful thing, takes less time and fewer dollars.

For those caught in the middle, I agree that it will be a tough pill to swallow to require you to pay for health insurance. How on earth can you pay for coverage if you can barely put food on your table? But why is it our responsibility to pay for you when you wait and then can’t pay anyways? Maybe the cost of being American? Why shouldn’t we require you to pay your way, or what you can? Maybe provide that major medical base coverage? If we pay in the end anyways, is it better to be proactive and hit it up front?

For those small businesses, how can we impose health coverage on them. So many of them are dealing with a myriad of issues. How do we impose health coverage on them?

Is for-profit medicine really an answer? I have no idea. T.R. Reid’s book “The Healing of America,” examines different systems. If you haven’t read it, give it a spin.

If you’re opposed to National Healthcare, have you every been sick or had a family member sick? I mean really sick – hospitalization, tests, missed work, etc. Imagine having no insurance or little insurance. These are the people who, in my humble opinion, National Healthcare is for. The many who every year file bankruptcy. Yes, many times with insurance.

How Does This End…

It won’t for a long time, I’m afraid. Too many differences of opinions, too much lobbying, failing to communicate or be willing to reach consensus. Maybe even being too biased to look at the reality of the situation. We all lose.