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Health care comes home

Posted on July 16, 2009 by Staff

Conventional wisdom puts the political epicenter of the fight for health care reform somewhere near the marbled halls of the U.S. Senate, but in reality the shaking and quaking is a lot closer to the place we call home.

Most families are familiar with what a health care crisis looks like, and for them it does not resemble a worried lobbyist for a highly profitable drug or insurance company.

You have to believe that it’s a bit confounding for those droning on in talking points inside the Beltway that attempts to water down the proposal or turn it into more business-as-usual have been met with strong pushback from “ordinary” Americans, as evidenced by a Wednesday rally in front of Blue Cross Blue Shield headquarters (see page 1).

That’s because when it comes to the health of our loved ones, nobody is ordinary. For many, this is a fight for their lives, and for many more this is a fight in the name of someone who the system did wrong.

One often-touted polling number is that roughly two-thirds of Americans are “satisfied” with the quality of their health care. What that number doesn’t get at is that while the care itself may be satisfactory, an overwhelming majority think the system designed to deliver and pay for it is broken, abysmal and needs fixing.

The opposition — funded to the tune of $1.4 million per day — wants us to worry about the cost or the bureaucracy rather than see the need and the value of a better system. Anyone who has tracked the rise in premiums or spent some time trying to get a rejected treatment approved or an overbilling on a procedure fixed has a right to wonder what planet these people are talking about.

States, towns, counties and businesses all over this country are caught in a cycle of never-ending rate hikes. As a result, benefits are dwindling just as co-payments and deductibles rise.

And competition, the very thing so many of those opposed say is threatened by reforms, is a straw
dog if there ever was one.

The American Medical Association — traditionally not the biggest booster of reform — recently published a report on insurance coverage that shows a nationwide patchwork of near monopolies.

The time has come for a better system, and, at least for now, those offering only fear and loathing are having trouble getting traction outside those aforementioned marble halls. Calling it “Obamacare” and howling about socialism doesn’t seem to be cutting it with the American people.

They’ve seen this trick before. Most have experienced firsthand the consequences of the failure to pass reforms in the mid-1990s. And they know there’s something wrong and inherently unfair with a system that leaves nearly 40 million of us uninsured and tens of millions more underinsured.

As we’ve seen recently, politicians hedging on true reform — including a strong public option — have not been treated kindly. Those fed up and ready for change have shown a willingness to hold feet to fire.

On one side, there may be a lot of campaign cash and arm-twisting saying, “No, you can’t.” But it looks like they might just be outnumbered this time by millions, including so many literally fighting for their lives, shouting back, “Yes, we can.”

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