This has been another week devoted to the health care debate. It was all over the news channels, both before and after Thursday's political theater. And it is, of course, the first topic up on C-SPAN this morning.
Well, technically they're talking about bipartisanship, but it's all revolving around the health care as an issue and whether or not the Democrats should forge ahead on their own or continue to try to work with the Republicans.
The thing that continues to floor me are the numbers of theoretically ordinary people, folks claiming to be just your average American, who call in to C-SPAN to insist either that our current system is just fine or that we should just let the private sector work it all out, because government is sure to screw things up. Well, our current system is, for most of us, a totally private system -- and it's not working particularly well. The private sector has had quite a few decades to get thing right, and failed abysmally. Premiums keep climbing, what policies actually cover keeps shrinking, people are paying more and getting less. . . so why would anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together think that the government could possibly do worse?
I'm also sick of Republicans arguing that they don't want the government "rationing" their health care. What do they think the insurance companies are doing right now? Paying for every procedure anyone wants or asks for? Heck no, they are controlling (i.e., approving or disapproving / refusing to pay for) every test, treatment, doctor visit, hospital stay, and medicine that any insured requests. How is it "rationing" when the government does it, but "effective cost control" when a giant, impersonal, and uncaring insurance corporation does it?
ReplyDeleteI overhear people talking about this and it is all I can do not to shake them to see if there is a brain in their heads.
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