A Banner Day!

I've been so busy tweeting that it's been days since I posted to my blog. But today cannot be confined to 140 characters, or to an entry on Facebook.

This afternoon, in spite of missing Robbie Hummel, Purdue advanced to the Sweet 16. This really shouldn't be too much of a surprise, since Purdue was seeded higher than both opponents. But yet, sports wiseacres who decided that Purdue was all Robbie Hummel, called them underdogs. Neither win was a walk in the park, but then, anyone who goes to the Big Dance should be a tough opponent. Besides, no one else is like Duke, who always gets to play close to home, and gets the easy early games. No, Purdue won against worthy opponents who just weren't as good. It is the right place for the team that ranked #4 through most of the season, and won its first 16 games.

Then, tonight, in an historic vote, the House passed a health care bill that President Obama will sign into law tomorrow. Immediately Americans will no longer be held hostage by the insurance companies. It is not right that in a time when people are making hard decisions about how to spend their incomes, and defer seeking medical care because of cost and an inability to pay, that insurance companies are posting big profits while denying claims for people who pay them for the coverage.

There is a hue and cry from the right, but it all boils down to power. The right wants the power, and will resist anything that they can't control. Personally, I'm sick of politics. Good health should not be a political decision. Doctors should not have insurance clerks telling them which tests they can or cannot run. Americans should not have to see a doctor based, not on who will give them the best care, but on who their insurance company will pay. No realistic alternative has been offered. The bill that passed is full of ideas from both Republicans and Democrats. Republicans even took to opposing traditional Republican ideas, just to oppose the bill.

Tonight is a huge victory, something that should have been done years ago. Just ask people how long they've had to negotiate with insurance companies, and you get the idea.

100 years ago, Teddy Roosevelt first introduced the idea of health care reform. 40 years ago, Ted Kennedy started fighting for it. Tonight, in spite of opposition that was primarily based in special interest influence, Teddy and Ted are smiling down in satisfaction.

Progress

The last health care bill has made it out of committee today. Thank you, Sen. Olympia Snowe, for being willing to publicly support the idea, even if the details aren't all you would prefer.

Lots of work ahead, of course, for the different bills to all compromise and become one. And there will be hell to pay if we end up with the "co-ops" instead of a public option. But overall it is very encouraging. I am cautiously beginning to hope that we might actually achieve meaningful health care reform this year.

And not a moment too soon. Every day the Congress negotiates, debates, postpones, it delays the day when a bill will take effect. Any bill will take a few years to completely take effect, so the sooner we get started, the better.

Get to work, you people in Congress!

Health Care Reform (again)

Have an hour and a half? I can make it worth your while. Watch the "town hall" meeting Joe Biden, along with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, conducted at a senior center in Maryland. He clearly and powerfully outlines not only the need for health care reform, but just what will and will not happen.

Joe Biden's comment, "Mom, it's hokum. It's a bunch of malarky," regarding the so-called "death panels" has been widely quoted. But he said a couple of other things I like even better.

He talked about his Senate history of defending Medicare, and he posed the question: Why would he, and the other people who worked so hard to defend and preserve Medicare, suddenly try to get rid of it? As he said, "It just doesn't make sense."

Biden also pointed out that the same people who are claiming now to be trying to save Medicare while making dire predictions about government interference and benefits reductions, are the same ones who have opposed Medicare, and were some of the same who voted for the law that will take effect in 2010 that will reduce Medicare benefits paid to doctors by 27%. If nothing is done to change that law.

The reality of this is, as I have said before, that the health insurance companies are the ones who will benefit if things stay the way they are. The companies make enormous profits each year, including subsidy payments from the government (Medicare Advantage, anyone?), and right now are unregulated and in control of who gets what kind of coverage, and what we pay. There is no reason, based on recent history, to expect that they will not continue to raise premiums, exclude people for coverage, and pay their executives million dollar bonuses.

The reform package being considered by the Congress does not go nearly as far as it could in reforming a system crippled by greed and no accountability on the part of the insurance companies. However, there at least are some regulations, a guarantee of coverage for everyone, and an attempt to bring down costs. It includes a government option that will provide coverage for people who can't afford private insurance, and will make it competitive with the insurance companies.

The opponents can pontificate and bluster all they want to. But no matter what argument they make, their interest lies not in helping the people, but in preserving the profits of the insurance companies. And that sends us the message that the profits of business are more important than the individual.

So I want to say to the opponents of reform: Show me your criteria for deciding who gets coverage and who doesn't. Because without reform that is what is happening. And any kind of bill without a guarantee of coverage for every American means they have decided that there are Americans who don't deserve to be able to afford their health care. I just want to know who those Americans are.

The Health Care Debate

The health insurance industry has needed reform for over 30 years. (I have commented on this before.)

The bottom line: This country is disgraceful. Milliions of citizens are without means to pay for health care, and our government caters to the wealthy insurance companies.

Do I sound like a socialist? Perhaps.

But, instead, I ask the question: Who in this country does not deserve to receive medical treatment?

Right now, the opponents of health care reform are essentially sending us the message that the profits of the health insurance companies are more important than the ability of the citizens to get basic care. They will couch it in different language, such as suspicion about cost, pending doom to life as we know it if the insurance companies are put out of business by a cheaper, government-sponsored plan, a nefarious plot by the government (ie them) to erode our health care and force us into a bureaucratic nightmare of socialized medicine.

Of course, most of us, who have health insurance, are mired in a bureaucratic nightmare of private health insurance companies, limiting our access to care, dictating our costs, dictating what procedures we can have. But for some reason, this is good.

It is a bunch of malarky. The real truth is: The only ones who stand to lose by this are the insurance companies. And even then, they only lose if they refuse to change the way they do business.

Health insurance is not a sacred cow. It is simply an industry that arose when an opportunity to make a profit presented itself.

Is it really necessary for a company to make a profit while the physicians, patients, and other health care professionals pay for it?

I say no. Health insurance is not a necessity. Affordable, accessible health care is.

Health Care Reform

As the debate rages on about health care reform (which really seems more like insurance reform at this point), I wonder what is taking so long. We have needed this for decades.

Thirty years ago, when I was just starting out in the working world, I had to find a job with insurance benefits because no starting jobs paid enough to cover out-of-pocket health care costs, much less individual health insurance. Not long after that, the Reagan recession hit, and there were hiring and salary (and benefits) freezes, and it was considered insane to leave a job for one without benefits.

By the time the economy recovered, the cost of individual health care had risen to the point where many companies that had offered it were discontinuing the service, passing it on to remaining companies. And then we were saying that costs had to be brought under control, or pretty soon no one would be able to afford it.

So here we are. Health care costs have skyrocketed, health insurance companies control which doctors their insureds see and which procedures they will pay for while making huge profits, and we have a Congress that's wringing its hands, worried about their campaign financing.

The time to reform, including a public option, is now. Not down the road, not when it's politically expedient. There is NO EXCUSE for millions of people unable to get basic medical attention because they are unable to pay for it. There will always be naysayers, people afraid of changing the status quo. But we reach a point where the status quo becomes more dangerous than change. This is one of those points.

So stop yapping about this might happen and that might happen and oh we shouldn't do this and that. Find a way for everyone to have equal access to health care. End of story.

Go Away and Come Back When You Want to Help America

I have had it with the self-righteous indignation of the Republican minority over health care reform, and the weak whining of the Democrats in Congress.

I am fed up with hearing, "We don't want the government getting between the patient and the doctor, with a bureaucrat determining care, and telling you you can't see your family physician."

And that is different than right now how? Right now doctors look at insurance first before determining treatment. And even when they make their best decision, an insurance company will still deny payment of a claim because they don't think the doctor made the right decision. Which is exactly what the Republicans claim will happen if there is a public option for health coverage.

I have to find a doctor who is a "member" of my insurance company's plan in order to receive coverage; if I choose to see a doctor outside the system, or, God forbid, out of state, it is a crap shoot whether or not I will be reimbursed. More than one year we have paid out of pocket expenses for our children's care after a certain point a wellness check with mandatory booster shots has put us over the "limit" the insurance company set for the amount they will pay annually for a child's doctor visits. And we still are required to pay our co-pay. And we have what is considered a good health plan.

Congress is not concerned with the well being of the health care industry, they are concerned with the well being of the health insurance industry. It is ludicrous that we function within a payment system that measures its success on how much profit it makes. So it doesn't matter that 60 percent of bankruptcies are a result of health care bills; it matters that the CEOs and executives of health insurance companies continue to make millions of dollars a year. And where does that money come from? From the premiums paid by those people who filed for bankruptcy.

The Republicans sanctimoniously speak against a public health insurance option as being anti-free market. What a bunch of hypocrites! Their health insurance, which they have for life even after leaving the Congress, is public health insurance!

In light of this opposition to government health care, I have a proposal. Completely eliminate any government health care, and let the members of Congress use COBRA or purchase private health insurance. Let them get those denial letters for payment of a prostate exam, or be told which specialist to see or what kind of treatment they can receive for cancer. Let them make a choice between sending their children to college or providing them with health care. Then when they stand before their peers and speak out against a public health insurance option, they will not be hypocrites.

I am sick of this. The Democrats need to stop worrying about looking like bullies just because FOX News says they are. And the Republicans need to just go away until they are ready to face the fact that the American people elected a Democratic majority and the president they did because they wanted a change from the way things have been done for the past 25 years.

And through all of this, they have yet to present an alternate plan that will allow anyone in the country to get medical care without worrying about whether or not they can afford to pay the bills. And forget that tax credit; a tax credit doesn't help when you are facing a 100,000 hospital bill and you make $19,000 a year.

It is time to stop debating. We are hearing the same debate, the same arguments, we have heard since the beginning of the 20th century, especially for the last 20 years. We are long past due to provide basic health care to anyone in the country. We are America: when we do something right, we do it better than any other country. Congress needs to stop worrying about where they're going to get their campaign donations, and restore the dignity of the American people, by making sure everyone can get medical care without having to fight for it.