Health Care Reform

There's a health care summit going on right now in Washington, while I write this.  I just heard a Republican senator suggest that the only "bipartisan" approach is to dump all the work that's been done and start over.  If I thought they could switch to a Medicare-for-all approach, I would agree.  But the fact is he just wants to kill the bill and keep it killed.

I've written about this here before, but it continues to be a problem in search of a serious answer so I'll briefly re-state my position. Our problem is not our doctors and hospitals, since we do have many, many great providers of health care.  Our problem is that the way we access that care is through private, for-profit insurance companies.  The goal of those companies is not to help sick people get better, it's to maximize profits for their stockholders.  That's just the way business works.  Trouble is, in this instance, the way to maximize profits is to take in as much as possible in premiums and pay out as little as possible in claims.  That's not a good way to run a health care system because it leaves too many people out and bars people from getting the care they need.

I've never posted two videos on this blog before, but these two say it better than I can.  Keith Olbermann's is very personal and hard to listen to, as it's largely about his father's situation.  Rachel Maddow's is more policy oriented but it's true and important.  If you haven't seen these, please watch.  Then contact your representatives in Washington and let them know we need real reform.

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Comments

[Randy Johnson]

Olbermann was tough to listen to, but I sympathized. I saw one of my sister's go through such years ago when she was battling breast cancer. She beat it back time and again until it got to much for her. She left us one week shy of her fifty-first birthday. If she had not had pretty good insurance from her job, I don't know how she would have made it as long as she did. Heaven knows what it would cost these days.

At my age, sixty, with health problems of my own and living alone with no children, I've had that conversation with my other sister, who I've given medical authority, as to what I want done when the time comes. Spelled it out clearly. Years ago, I set up, and paid for ahead of time, final arrangements for disposition with the local funeral home so that would not be something they would have to think about at the time.

The whole thing, living will and all, has been done. More people should do that, but they don't. People don't like to talk about death.

[Jeff Mariotte]

It is very hard to talk about, and I'm glad you had the courage to do it, Randy.