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"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane" - Martin Luther King, Jr.
Does anyone doubt that health care was a major issue for the first year of the Obama Administration? Yet for most people the details are evasive, confusing, divisive, frustrating, elusive and difficult to comprehend.
The national health care reform debate has led to some of the most hateful, selfish, mean spirited, nasty and divisive speech this country has seen in quite a while. People have been hoodwinked or intimidated and some have been totally shut out of the debate completely, as a result.
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Few people agree on what health care reform should entail, some would call it a financial drain, some call it communism, some call it a social necessity, and others would call it a moral imperative.
The case for health care might be strongest with the argument that in the present world economy we are unable to compete economically because the public sector is paying for health care coverage, because most of the world has subsidized national health care and we don't. As the argument goes unless government lifts the burden of healthcare from business, we will be unable to compete with companies in subsidized health care nations. Fear and loathing of 'socialized medicine' are leading us to no change.
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Now that the House and Senate health care bills are being reconciled - both bills are hardly identical - it seems that the hope of real national health care and/or reform is lost. For this observer the health care bill seems to be more like an insurance, drug and health services company/corporation economic stimulus plan, than actual health care reform. Corporate socialism seems to be acceptable to neo-conservatives and neo-liberals, but don't let it happen for the country in general. All this decided by people who have more than adequate coverage or some of the best taxpayer provided health care in the world.
Real reform might include drug price control and reform, limits on pre-existing condition denial/pricing issues, defending and maintaining the viability of existing Medicare and Medicaid, full coverage of catastrophic conditions, pre- and postnatal care on demand for all, pain management and self medication rights, among some others.
After the last year of debate and wrangling, health care capitalism on steroids seems to be the result given the mandatory requirement that everyone purchase healthcare insurance (required by the new health care bill). Hefty fines by the Fed for not purchasing that mandatory insurance are the penalty for non-compliance. For those of us who have paid in for a lifetime and are within 10 years of receiving social security and Medicare, this is hardly a solution to a massive health care system bordering on fraud, malfeasance and greed.
Long time health care dysfunction, such as the multi level pricing schemes and excessively high drug costs, lack of catastrophic health care coverage and limits on policy pricing for pre-existing health problems are real concerns for a good deal of the country, but do not seem to be fully on the radar of those who crafted the health care bills now on the table or those others who oppose it so stridently.
The failure of the Obama Administration to start with an intention of crafting a single payer health care reform plan and then coming to a compromise would have made me happier, than starting with the intention of insurance company health care reform from the start. Flying the flag of a public option pleased only some and died on the vine early.
Have we really achieved much in the new health care paradigm? Doubtful!!! Never getting drug price reform for patients is a major failing in the health care reform effort for the invalids and elderly.
More than a few questions come to mind. Why do insurance companies pay a reduced price on drugs but the public and Medicare/Medicaid (gov't) pay full price? Drug pricing is part of what is dysfunctional about health care in this country. Why does most of the world pay less for drugs than we do? Why must someone pay for drugs twice, once to the drug company and the second time from the supplier? Why can't people go to Canada to purchase low cost drugs they need? Why a middleman in drug providing? Why do tax payers pay so much on drugs that their tax dollars helped to develop? Is extreme profiteering on health care, disease and terminal patients unethical?
After World War II the British developed a national health care system, in part because so much had been done to develop the system during the war when a huge part of the population was a refugee in their own country. It has worked well for them even with its warts. If an American becomes ill in the British Isles you will find out how well it works. They will treat you as their own. Here in this country we are not that gracious - pay up illegal... foreigner... deadbeat??!!!
In short we need to 'stop peeing in the pot we all eat from' and accept that when everyone does better everyone does better. Health care is an example where that aptly applies.
"To be without health insurance in this country means to be without access to medical care. But health is not a luxury, nor should it be the sole possession of a privileged few. We are all created b'tzelem elohim - in the image of God - and this makes each human life as precious as the next. By 'pricing out' a portion of this country's population from health care coverage, we mock the image of God and destroy the vessels of God's work." - Rabbi Alexander Schindler, Past President, Union of American Hebrew Congregations [1992]
"Every person has the right to adequate health care. This right flows from the sanctity of human life and the dignity that belongs to all persons, who are made in the image of God . . . Our call for health care reform is rooted in the biblical call to heal the sick and to serve 'the least of these,' the priorities of justice and the principle of the common good. The existing patterns of health care in the United Sates do not meet the minimal standard of social justice and the common good." - U.S. Catholic Bishops [1993] Resolution on Health Care Reform
"The health of a society is truly measured by the quality of its concern and care for the health of its members . . . The right of every individuals to adequate health care flows from the sanctity of human life and that dignity belongs to all human beings . . . We believe that health is a fundamental human right which has as its prerequisites social justice and equality and that it should be equally available and accessible to all." - Imam Sa'dullah Khan, The Islamic Center of Southern California
"Health care is an essential safeguard of human life and dignity and there is an obligation for society to ensure that every person be able to realize this right." - Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, Chicago Archdiocese
Famous Martin Luther King Quote: "Life's most urgent question is: what are you doing for others?"
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