When
you consider how many centuries it took us as a country and how many millennia it
took us as a species to become socially aware enough that it needed to be a
daily debate where those wronged by God or nature with the wrong genitalia
should get to urinate it is no wonder we are struggling with our health care
system.
It is a wonder we are able to
take on nourishment without stabbing ourselves in the eye with a fork.
Which is exactly what I want to
do when I think of the agony we are putting ourselves through trying to figure
out how as a society we can fairly offer health care to all at a cost that
doesn’t unduly burden everybody in the equation.
Somebody a lot smarter than me
once suggested that if you want to know how things get done in Washington you
just need to follow the money. But I have had a hard time finding out just
whose pockets the insurance companies must be lining to overflowing in Congress.
That seems to me to be the only
possible explanation for why we would hesitate to allow or require insurance
companies to compete across state lines. Other people a lot smarter than me
believe that alone would bring down premium costs faster than a rock in water.
Not to mention allowing small
businesses to band together for the purpose of purchasing policies at group
rather than individual rates.
And does anyone else wonder what
a tonsillectomy really costs? When you go to a doctor or hospital for anything
no one says, “this procedure is going to cost $7,830, would you like to buy it?”
Nope, they just say, “you need this procedure or you’ll die” and you have no
idea what it costs until you get the bill in the mail. And even then you don’t
know until you get your insurance statement telling the provider, “well, we
will only pay $600 for your $7,800 procedure, and our client/your patient will
cheerfully pay another $1,500 of their deductible. How would that be?”
And everybody says, “Ok,” except
maybe you who says “Hey, wait a minute…” but no one cares.
It’s not my original observation
(all those people smarter than me again), but name one other thing you consume
where the price is a post purchase surprise. Does that seem right to you?
Plus, if I have Blue Cross
Insurance and you have Humana and my provider says they’ll pay the $600 and my
deductible is $1,500 but your Humana says they’ll pay $800 and your deductible
is $2,500 for the exact same procedure and neither of us had a chance to say “I
think I’ll go on Craig’s List and shop for a better deal,” that seems kind of
messed up too.
I’m not in favor of having the
government, of all corruptible entities, set standardized medical rates but
doesn’t it seem like the cost of healthcare should be a little more
transparent? Imagine what might happen if the cost of a triple bypass were
subject to the same laws of a free market as buying a car.
Ok, there might be some good
arguments against opening up surgical procedures to the lowest bidder but a
little transparency in a more open market would surely bring costs down.
For a society that thinks it is
so enlightened we can spend months debating where a guy can pee if he thinks he’s
a girl, we have sure made some really simple concepts complicated.
I do know there is little about our
health care dilemma that is actually simple, but good grief.
There are many who think the
issue is so complicated that we ought to just let the government manage the
whole thing and then we won’t have to worry about it. There are at least an
equal number of us who think letting the government manage something as complex
and important as health care might be the dumbest thing we have ever done as a
country.
I know they’re really happy
about universal health care in Iceland and Finland but we are not nearly the
homogenous societies with common values that those countries are. Sorry.
The Republican Party can’t even agree on a
proposal to try and remedy the situation which has me more angry than any other
piece of this puzzle. We knew when President Trump was elected that repealing
and replacing Obamacare was at the very top of his to do list.
Why
then, weren’t we prepared with a multitude of proposals prior to January 20th
for how to get that done? Why hadn’t the debate and discussion already taken
place instead of it seeming like a big surprise that we needed to get some
legislation written? The right hand never had less idea what the left hand was
up to, it seems.
Seriously,
if the Republican Party can’t get its head out of the 18th hole and
work together to take advantage of the fact they control the White House and
both houses of Congress right now and effect some change that matters then we
should never again be allowed to complain when the liberal agenda further
constricts our freedoms and liberties and offends simple common sense.
This
is like a horribly bad joke. Who cares what CNN says? They don’t get to pass
laws. Get the job done and stop bickering. You morons should have had this
worked out weeks ago and there should already be a health care bill in the
Senate to distract Senator Schumer, et al, from the fact Neil Gorsuch is about
to become a Supreme Court Justice whether they like it or not.
If
ever the Republican Party had had its pants pulled down to its ankles to expose
who they really are more than now I can’t imagine when. It is painfully obvious
that the fractures and fissures between true conservatives and career
politicians in the party are vast. The Democrats may propose polar opposite
points of view than conservatives but by God, they are unified in their lunacy.
Can’t
the Republicans at least agree on principal? At the moment it doesn’t look like
it. And if those idiots can’t get Obamacare replaced they had better at least
figure out how to keep it from suffocating under its own weight because the
implications of that are going to affect one heck of a lot more than 10 million
real people and 14 million more imaginary ones.
Shut
up and do your jobs! Honest to Pete.
No comments:
Post a Comment