To Be or Not to Be Our Legacy: America’s Healthcare Plan
James DuganAmerica must be the most egocentric democracy that has ever existed. In a world of ever increasing medical advances and improving healthcare, we are debating whether we should share these advancements with our own citizens. It would be morally wrong for us not to share our knowledge to benefit the sick and aging in the world, let alone our own neighbors. But as we fight over dollars and cents and particular language of certain procedures, the message is loud and clear to the world: we do not care about the well being of each other and the right of our citizens to a healthy life.
Recently, I read a powerful article about the cost and pain of modern medicine in the Philadelphia Inquirer A look at the new field of palliative care. If you take the time to explore this well written, thorough and balanced piece of journalism (except for the jab against the senators), you will no longer argue about the needed changes in healthcare in our American society. The cost and the pain on the patient, hospital and family is something we will all go through in our lifetimes. It is an universal experience that will forever change us emotionally, physically and financially in the most profound sense. Healthcare as it stands today will figuratively destroy our legacy as death will steal our lives. It is time for America to address the healthcare crisis because without a universal plan that we all contribute to and feel responsible for, our families will face the rising cost and questions of our health alone just as we will face death alone.
It is easy to give the jab of “I’m not paying for someone to go to the doctor who doesn’t work.” Yes you are. It is called Medicare. The callousness of the statement is not only unpatriotic, it is downright antisocial, priggish and laced with negative karma. The second most popular response to universal healthcare is “that I pay for it, why should someone get the care I deserve for nothing.” American history boils down to unity for survival; the people who join in this chorus blame the poor for being poor, as if nothing has created poverty or the class system except for laziness. And the final most popular slogan is the cost. The cost for a healthy American has a price tag. The cost of one day being sick and ending up with nothing has no price tag. One American is not worth more than any other American based on the constitution that our politicians in Washington are supposed to uphold. With a universal system of care, that is supported and used by all Americans, we will reign in cost, promote healthier lifestyles, and never let any American become financially destroyed by an illness to themselves or their loved ones.
That takes me back to palliative care. One of the largest critiques by the opposition to universal healthcare is the “death panel”. In the article above, the reporter takes a close look at the responsible people who search for justice and compassion in death. Without the written wishes of the dying person, the families are made to make the decision when living should cease and death begins. With the great power of medical technology to keep the body alive, death has become a decision for the families. One of the best things that can come from universal healthcare is the focus on the “living will”. The true decisions of when a person should die can and should rest with the dying person. The millions and millions of dollars and resources spent because we do not want to think about illness and death in America is one of the fundamental reasons that healthcare is not already an American birthright, just as an education, liberty, and voting is.
Whether this dream is passed by Congress should not stop our discussion on the right healthcare for our communities and families. We need to take active steps in our lives to insure the wishes of every member addressing their death. We need to take steps for the inevitable that are rational, caring and responsible for our own family and the nation. Universal Healthcare will make our health truly ours. Every dollar will be spent on Americans and made by Americans. The time to think and act as people who care for one another is here in this healthcare measure.
Everyday I see America falling apart and becoming separated into factions by individual ideals and futures. And yet in the tragedies of 9/11, Katrina and the Great Recession, we realize how interconnected we are. We suffer and heal the same. We are born and die the same. We already have healthcare in common. If we don’t, then healthcare will become a privilege of the rich as we watch more and more drugs and procedures leave the affordability of the middle class. You need to talk about death and health because they are essential to the future stability of America.
Factbox: Summary of Obama's healthcare proposal
Reader Comments (5)
While I agree with some of the points in your argument like living wills and making cutting edge care affordable for all, your post primarily uses these emotional appeals to generalize the current healthcare bill as something morally necessary. To gloss over the real facts and problems of the current legislation in exchange for platitudes about morality (a relative term), birthrights supposedly guaranteed in the Constitution (subject to interpretation), and "negative karma" (a religious belief) is to oversimplify what's really at stake with this legislation.
The first and probably most worrying problem in our nation today is not healthcare, it's that jobs are drying up. Last month congress and the media actually celebrated the fact that people are not losing jobs as fast as we have been. Harry Reid said on the Senate floor, "Today is a big day in America. Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good." This is not really good! What would be really good is if instead of sugar-coating terrible economic numbers, Reid and the rest of Democratic leadership would stop focusing all of their energy on healthcare and instead spend more time addressing the nation's tenuous economic situation. The biggest threat to the middle class in not, as you say, inequality in healthcare it's the close to 10% unemployment officially, which is probably more like 17% since most people have stopped looking for work. This country cannot afford to allow almost one-fifth of its working adults to take a two year hiatus from employment while the economy struggles to recover in spite of Washington's lack of action.
Your piece suggests that a universal healthcare system will be a shared responsibility, because we will all pay for it. However, with 1 in 5 or 6 people are not making taxable income, this burden won't really be "universal", will it? Not to mention the fact that the taxes will undoubtedly be higher on those with better health insurance plans. Yes, this includes the wealthy (who I know you despise for their success) but it also includes labor unions who mainly serve the working class you are so worried about protecting. Personally, I'd rather have my healthcare be a bargain between my labor union and my employer, than the IRS and bureaucrats in Washington. At least, I have some amount of personal contact with my union reps and can choose my employer. Furthermore, unless people are actually writing out a check or paying a co-pay at the doctor's office, they are not going to feel invested in their healthcare. They will probably only think about it during tax time if at all, and the rest of the year they'll feel like it's something they deserve to get for free from the government.
I also thought it was misleading of you to tout Medicare and Medicaid as a positive example of Americans being forced to help other Americans. On average government run healthcare programs are much more wasteful than any in the private sector. In 2009, an estimated $98 billion dollars was lost due to fraud and waste in government programs. Of that number, $54 billion came from improper Medicare and Medicaid payments. Thankfully, the President has acknowledged this waste and is pledging to crackdown on the problems. I just can't understand why he can't make the logical connection, that if fraud and waste has been a big problem in Medicare/Medicaid, it's sure to be an even bigger issue in a larger government sponsored "universal" healthcare system.
So when you write that people oppose government healthcare because they don't want "to pay for out of work people to go to the doctors," I think you are over generalizing their opposition to fit your own class and political stereotypes. More likely, I think most rational people don't want to turn their money over to a government that treats their dollars like monopoly money and sees a few billion dollars in waste as the price of getting kickbacks to their special interest groups. I'm not saying that there are no problems in the private insurance industry, but at least Independence Blue Cross has an incentive to pursue fraud prevention and investigations. Namely, they have to stay in business, whereas the Federal government makes its own money and obviously isn't worried about operating with a huge deficit.
Finally, your post claims that if everyone participates, universal health care will reign in cost, promote healthier lifestyles, etc. There are several problems here. First, how can we ensure that everyone will participate. Many people just choose not to get healthcare even though they could afford it. In Massachusetts, where they've tried a government healthcare system since 2006, they've only signed up about half of the uninsured for the government program. Also, the legislation led to overcrowded waiting rooms and budget shortfalls in hospitals serving a majority of those on the government plan. And guess where they propose to make up the necessary funds? Grants from the federal government and tax increases. Secondly, what is exactly in the legislation that will reign in costs? Do we even know? The bill is so long and complicated, that there are sure to be unintended consequences and costs that not even the Washington healthcare experts can predict. I doubt any of these will be decreases in cost.
Now, you could argue against me and say I'm being callous, pessimistic, and even selfish and egotistical. But I would counter that if true, my example of sheer egotism has been the Democratic leadership in Washington. They are hell-bent on passing a bill that no good can come out of, except justification of their own misguided political, ideology-driven agendas. If it passes, most voters, even Democrats, will be very unhappy with a leadership that doesn't govern according to the will of its constituents, and instead chooses to play the "we know what's best" game and "you'll thank us later." Since this course will undoubtedly lead to them being voted out of office and yet they still pursue, one can only conclude despite unfavorable poll after poll and unified opposition from the other party, Democrats have been blinded by their own pride. Alternatively, if the bill doesn't pass despite all their efforts, their political capital will be all but gone and then even less will get done in Washington. The best solution would be to scale back their healthcare efforts. To make a policy shift towards the economy, while still trying to pass small pieces of healthcare reform on an incremental basis. As your post points out, there are many things that I think both sides of the aisle can agree on, but in this economy, the American people are just not willing to see them all crammed into a huge bill with a massive price tag.
So before you oversimplify the arguments and try to remind readers of "death panels" again, I think your efforts would be better spent getting your own party to come back down to reality on this healthcare legislation. Does the system need to be reformed? Yes. But this one, very flawed bill is certainly not the only answer. To present it as such is not only dishonest, but the height of egotism.
Your focus on jobs and employment is a crying call that rings empty with tax incentives for overseas products that flood the American shores that create no manufactoring or textile jobs and at best, creates low wage retail jobs by huge retail giants who offer no security in wages or healthcare benefits. Obama's new plan to increase our outputs by double would help employment.
But I do want to focus on employment since you bring it up and they seem to be two diametrical endpoints: healthcare or employment. What jobs are you talking about? How do think we can create jobs when business holds all the cards, including healthcare and wages. The constant eroding of American jobs by American companies that saw a much better return by making things outside of America and then turn it around and sell to the people they abandoned and were encouraged by our tax laws and business free exemption of the 70's and 80's by the government has caused the proliferation of unemployed and weakening of the economy. Do you hope to bring these jobs back? Because the numbers represent these workers. You will have to use the government to create new tariffs that make foreign made products more expensive if you hope to rekindle the flame of American blue color jobs that once offered a liveable wage.
The other end of employment will be start up companies and small businesses that fuel local economies and offer a new hope for America's industrial future. One way we can compete and help new companies will be alleviate the 1940's and 1950's ideal of offering healthcare to attract workers. Most businesses in this economy can not afford the premiums healthcare companies offer and if they give it to their employees, they will either have to take it from their wages or retract on expansion of marketing and innovation that helps a business grow. The way to fuel the economy is by making healthcare available without placing the burden on American businesses, thus allowing more money for new workers and new markets. Universal Healthcare gives the chance for American companies now who are struggling because of the issue to gain added income to expand without adding one state job. This is why both issues are related.
Finally -- the idea of healthcare companies were good. They have been a necessary middle man to keep the cost of medicine down. But they can no longer be feasible without drastically cutting liabilities that hurt their profit margin because of aging population, new medicines, and new technology. Those liabilities may be you and me, people with diabeties or AIDS, people who have a family history of alcoholism or heartaches. The escalating cost of providing healthcare with make us less and less eligible for services in the business or free market model. We need a system large enough to accept every American because some of us will need healthcare more than others. Hopefully, just a few of us will need it but it is turning out that many will. No one will be ineligible and everyone will have a chance to see a doctor at a reasonable cost decided by the people of America and the medical industry.
If you want more jobs and growth in the American economy, you will have to vote for Healthcare. Tax payers will pay for the escalating cost of those ineligible people who are abandoned by Health Insurance companies. If we don't act now, we will all be working for the state. Universal Healthcare may be the last chance to keep our free market capitalism.
Thanks for the reply.
I would like to know if either of you know exactly what is in the bill (or if anyone in Congress who's going to be voting on this does). I would like to know what the final, bottom line costs will be, and who those costs will directly affect. And finally, I would like to know just how long they are going to postpone the deadline. It seems like they will keep doing so until Nancy gets her votes.
This is why we elect people who have the obligation to protect and serve their constituents. Taxes hurt, but the inevitable medical bills could destroy the individual. I only wrote the piece because the ideal of universal healthcare is working in almost ever developed nation in the world.
The American government pays when catastrophic illnesses end up in the ER or the individual can no longer pay. Hospitals and doctors accrue the cost of lawsuits due to poor medical history or a lack thereof because of no previous treatment or family history.
The US can go to war and have no bottom line of cost. But if someone suggest that an US citizen goes to the doctor and have a precedure we freak out about the pay. The people who are fighting for this bill are people who fight for people who worry about how to pay for the next medicine or workers who have no insurance to go see a doctor, yet they are in pain.
Until we change the system, the cost will spiral out of control for businesses and individuals.
Dugan, thanks for your reply focusing on employment. It brings up a lot of false notions proliferated by the President and his far-left friends in the media. And since you failed to address any of my other legitimate concerns (rampant waste in medicare, an enormous pricetag, and an unsustainable federal deficit) about this bill, I'll be happy to keep my second rebuttal directed towards the comments in your reply.
First, your assumption that the new jobs I spoke of be the kind that were outsourced or those in retail conglomerates not only reveals your outdated economic perspective but also your failure to see beyond any of the cliched "crying calls" that Democrats have been making against big business for years. You claim that since manufacturing jobs have all left the country, our only hope is to use the Federal government to create employment. Lucky us, Big Uncle Sam can come and save us from the evil capitalists and we won't have to do anything for ourselves! Your assumption that Obamacare will increase outputs is absurd. Just because there may be more insured people doesn't mean that our medical infrastructure is suddenly going to be able to accommodate them. And I don't have much faith that the government will be able to manage the hiring of doctors, nurses and other medical staff needed to address the ever increasing lines at the ER. Rather, I bet the government will encourage hospitals to look for doctors outside our borders, because its much more "cost effective" to hire a doctor trained in another country than an American educated one who demands the kind of salary necessary to cover huge student loans and malpractice insurance (which this bill also fails to address). So in the face of a government who will artificially drive down prices and a medical industry who will have no leverage with the government, how can we expect any new medical professionals to choose employment in this field? I might add that right now, the medical industry is one of the few remaining sources of jobs and economic growth in America. This bill would threaten that.
So what jobs am I talking about then? Small business of course, the traditional drivers of new employment in our country. I'm not bleary-eyed and wistful for Roman-Haas to come back, I'd like to see new, innovative industries that can compete in the global economy. Of course, this would have to come from small business. And I think that rather than make employer healthcare cheaper, Obamacare is actually going to increase employer plan costs because it will require them to buy more expensive plans, mandate more sick leave, and charge a penalty to those who don't. This will lead to more layoffs, not more jobs. Rather Congress should work at setting up a system that encourages small businesses.
Another claim that you make that completely baffles me is that universal healthcare has worked in nearly every country that has tried it. Define "work." Why did the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador come here to have his heart surgery? I'd like for you to name some countries that are more happy with their government healthcare than the 90% of Americans who have private coverage.
Finally, you said, "Universal Healthcare may be the last chance to keep our free market capitalism." WTF?! Please explain how nationalizing a private sector of the economy that accounts for 6% of GDP is helpful to free market capitalism? Seriously, we are really of the opposite opinion on this one. I don't even know how to reconcile our views, except that I think we are both afraid of the same thing - economic slavery. You are afraid of big business and I fear the State. As Dick Durbin (Democratic supporter of the bill) said March 10 "Anyone who would stand before you and say 'well, if you pass health care reform next year's health care premiums are going down,' I don't think is telling the truth. I think it is likely they would go up." So either these increased premiums get passed off on us one of two ways. Employers cut back on jobs and wages to support the new healthcare regulations or the Federal government increases our taxes. Each is its own brand of economic slavery, either we're trapped in dollar skimping companies or the Federal government takes away 40% of our income. Which would you rather? As for me, at least I can choose my employer and I don't want to leave America because we gambled on a bad healthcare entitlement that will take decades to repeal. I'd rather the Federal government take a step back on this one and try to pass smaller, cheaper healthcare reforms than one massive bill that nobody seems to like except for you and a handful of other ideologues.