Health Care Debate

Just as a disclosure so you know where I stand. Right out of high school I did volunteer work on a drive for national health care. This was 4 years before Clinton tried and failed. At the time the only national figures talking about it where Ted Kennedy and Bob Kerry. So it is with great interest that I watch what is going on now, with all the same arguments, and many of the same mistakes being made. (I will write more about this later.)

You may have seen some of the disruptions of town hall meetings on the news (I will give my opinions about these later on as well). In one of them, a woman at the back of the hall is holding up a Bible and she keeps showing it to the camera saying it's the truth, it's the truth. Since she is standing with the protesters I'm assuming she is with them, but I can't figure out what the Bible has to do with the protest. What is even stranger is that the Bible she is holding up is the New American Bible, which is published by World Catholic Press. What she might be surprised to know is that the Catholic Church is the largest health care provider in the world. In many parts of the world, they are the health care provider. In other words, they are reaching out and providing care to those who need health care who don't have access to it otherwise. So there is a disconnect for me between her protesting giving universal access to health care here in the US when that is what the Catholic church is also trying to do.

Let me tell you two stories that involve me and my family:

I had left one job, with insurance, started a new job, that also had insurance, but was in that dead zone after the old insurance had ended but before the new one had begun, and COBRA is way to expensive to take on. I was out chopping wood when a piece flew up and hit me in the eye, scratching it. So here I am with an injury, no insurance, and no money to be able to afford to go to the emergency room. I went out and got a patch, some eye drops in order to wash out any residue, and put up with it best I could, but it hurt a lot and was very irritating. Fortunately for me, my roommate's mother was a doctor, so she called her told her what happened, and she called in a prescription for me, under her daughter's name, so that I could get treatment. (This is illegal by the way but not being American by birth she thought it was absurd that people couldn't have access to health care when they needed it) I used the cream in my eye and fortunately everything worked out fine, but it might not have.

The other story involves my sister-in-law and brother-in-law. Like me, they were between insurance because of a job change. In fact they were one week away from being covered. Their oldest son was playing with his best friend on the jungle gym, when his friend fell and shattered his elbow. A long surgery and days in the hospital later he was on the road to recovery. But it could have just as easily have been Spencer as it was his friend, and if it had been Spencer they would not have been able to have afforded the bills, but obviously would have needed to seek treatment. More than likely they would have become one of the close to one million people who declare bankruptcy each year due to medical expenses.

These stories are not unique or strange, they happen everyday all over the place. Regardless of where you stand on this issue, something needs to be done, it's what is done that we should be discussing (not arguing or shouting each other down, but discussing). So let's begin an honest and open discussion of these issues and what should be done. What's happening now is not helpful to the process and does not deal with the seriousness of the problem.