The recent healthcare legislative struggles in this country have been troubling to say the least. The public option is dead and the medicare buy-in option has been scrapped, leaving the current state of the Senate healthcare bill a tattered, beaten and embarrassing mess. As a vehement supporter of a single payer health care system, I am disappointed to see the reasonable and politically moderate public option taken off of the table. A single payer system, while ideal in my opinion, is just not feasible in our country. Realistically, there are too many powerful private insurance and pharmaceutical companies that dominate the system and pay off Washington legislators. The implementation of such a system would be too big of a disruption. The public option is fundamentally different though, since it leaves the current dynamic of profit driven, private companies in the ballgame. It does not radically change the U.S. healthcare system. Instead, its primary goals are to insure people who have no coverage and to rein in spending universally. MIT economist, Jonathan Gruber proved that the version of the bill with a public option would significantly curb wasteful spending and improve coverage. Fiscal conservatives, where are you!? For goodness sake, the public option is not a government takeover, it is a political compromise!
According to a recent census report, over 46 million Americans are uninsured. People are dying everyday because they are denied coverage or just cannot afford it. Individuals who are not deemed “profitable” in the eyes of insurance companies are either turned away, or denied special services. This is the moment when politics no longer matters. Again, people are dying. Too many of us are just ignoring this basic fact. Capitalism is a wonderful economic system and I would never trade it for anything else but health care needs to be handled differently. Private insurers do not care about saving lives; they care about turning profits and beating quarterly estimates on Wall Street. They have to continually appease their shareholders and corporate partners. As long as this simple fact remains true, the life of each American will never matter as much as the money does. This is the basic fundamental nature of our modern healthcare system. As Al Franken said on the floor of the Senate last week, “you are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts”.
Imagine having to pay for your own personal and private fire and police protection services. Sound funny? Well, that’s because it is. Public fire and police protection exist for one fundamental reason: to ensure safety from fire, crime and general emergencies for constituents of a specific region. Policemen and firemen, quite bluntly, save lives. Their work on local, state and federal levels save the lives of Americans directly or indirectly every day. Our society has accepted this basic right and provision of safety and security against crime, disaster and – you guessed it – death. We as Americans (and most of humanity), assume this basic right to live. Why isn’t this concept extended into the realm of healthcare? See my point? Why are people denied the right to live? Why are people, on some level, forced to DIE because of their “credentials”? As Keith Olbermann has wisely stated before, “Healthcare is at its core about improving the odds of life in its struggle against death.”
My goal is to not sell people on a particular ideology, political agenda or opinion, it is to simply make people think about healthcare differently and more humanely. I wish my voice was louder and could reach more people. Please, if you have some time and care at all about healthcare in this country, watch these five videos in order.
PART ONE … PART TWO … PART THREE … PART FOUR … PART FIVE
. Check it out!
