The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Barth's picture

    Questions about health care and then some

    By Barth on Sat, 09/12/2009 - 3:54pm |
    Before we get too wrapped up in the shame of it all, or whether the President was telling the truth or not when he was called a liar, may I just ask why a person who needs medical care should be denied it and permitted to suffer or maybe die because he is an "illegal immigrant"?

    Ah, never mind. We are too mean, and self-centered a nation to worry about others these days, I suppose, or to do something just because it is the right thing to do. 

    The President, we are told, needs to explain to the millions who have medical insurance and "like it" why these reform are necessary. Morning Joe tells me this every day: "I got news for you, Mr. President, most people have health insurance and they like what they have." End of story.

    Some of us are about to enter a period of introspection as the New Year of our faith commences. Many of us will hear sermons about our obligations to our fellow man. Things like this:

    Do we believe that we are behaving well, as individuals and as a society? Would we, without qualification, proclaim that we have done our very best to raise up those who are trapped in an economic circumstances and a social environment which destines a group of citizens to poverty and suffering?

    As in personal behavior, so in public policy, we should apply a moral standard which compels us to take a measure of how we are doing. For the Jew, it is not sufficient to obey commandments. Ultimately, the measure proclaimed in the Torah and by which we measure ourselves on Yom Kippur when we stand together and alone before God, is 'Are we living and behaving with holiness as the plumb line in our lives? Are we morally straight in our own eyes and before God?'

    We have much work to do together


    So, no, the system in place now is unfair and frightening. To me, and, by all rights and reason, to my neighbor.

    That is what Senator Kennedy was telling us, through our President, and what he told us and the Pope, through Cardinal McCarrick. It is our moral obligation to do something about this, if we can. As the President reminded us, we have risen to the occasion in our past, in the deepest of the Depression and in the aftermath of the murder of our beloved President Kennedy, but we have to do it now without either event screaming at us, because we can.

    But just repeating popular mantras won't do the trick. Yes, everyone is for affordable health care and insurance. Yes, we don't want people to be denied coverage because of "pre-existing illness or conditions" nor do we want people to lose their insurance because they got sick, or laid off.

    But, ladies and gentleman, nobody wants to say this clearly and unequivocally, but THESE THINGS COST MONEY. Congress can pass a bill, "reforming" the insurance industry and require them to insure people who will have larger medical bills than most, but that will not make rates go down or become more affordable.

    Public plans which tell medical professionals that they will be paid only a fraction of what they can be paid by other plans will fail, because medical professionals will not accept patients covered by that plan. And, I am sorry, Mr. President, costs will not be reduced by "eliminating fraud and waste."

    Costs will be reduced by only one thing. Competitive pressure or a single source of medical insurance which mandates what doctors can get unless the patient is footing the entire bill themself. (This is what some people who do not speak English call the "single payer" system.)

    So, if we cannot have the latter system (called "Medicaid for all" for many years) because it suggests a Soviet takeover of our government (or whatever the stupid excuse is today), then there needs to be a reason for insurance companies and doctors to keep the amount they want to take from sick people, or from those who insure sick people, to a reasonable figure.

    That, Republicans have taught me, is called competition. The vaunted free market has not brought us this competition for a variety of reasons. Hence, the government has to do this. Period.

    I agree with the President on this point. If someone has a better idea (and not the unregulated free for all that would come from allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines) we should all be willing to listen to it. If it turns out that is a better idea, or even if it might be a better idea, then let's do that.

    Or, let's create a government backed insurance company which is not trying to make money and does not need to advertise or have ballparks named after it, compete with all the greed and selfishness that is out there today.

    Pick one. Let's do it.

    Now.