When Health Care Reform Isn't

In the words of Howard Beall from that 70's classic, Network, I can't take it anymore. This Health Care stuff is driving me nuts! Now granted, some days that journey is a little shortter than others, but that's a story for another day. You turn on the radio, we hear stories about health care reform. You turn on the news, and it is more of the same. Commercials have old folks complaining about losing their benefits and pictures of neglected hospital patients. And then everywhere else you look, it seems people are locked in a fight to the death cage match MMA UFC 104 extravaganza about the Baucus Bill, Obamacare, a GOP alternative, the cost of action, the cost of inaction, and the list goes on and on. Enough. Stop it. Basta! None of you are proposing any real health care reform. Can you hear me? There is not a single plan out there that has a realistic chance to lower the cost of health care in the United States. Because all of your supposed plans deal with health care from the insurance side of the equation. Why else would the insurance companies like the proposals? There does not seem to be anything being proposed that would seek to limit the actual underlying costs of health care. Admittedly, some of these plans do seek to make it easier for me to afford that $12.00 aspirin I will receive at the hospital, but that does not actually lower the costs. It merely shifts the burden of responsibility. So perhaps we should really call all of this stuff, Health Insurance Reform. Because dealing with stuff like pre-existing conditions, access, coverage minimums and maximums and the like, all deal with insurance, not health care. I was talking to a friend the other day and he was relating that when he was growing up in the 60's, their family had a major medical policy for catastrophic problems. It cost about $25.00 a month. It was what a lot of people had. The rest of your medical bills were your responsibility. Now I know a lot of folks will be with me here, saying that is how it should be, and I do not disagree. But there is a difference. Back then it did not cost you two months salary to go the emergency room if something was wrong with you in the middle of the night. Back then you went, got fixed up, and either paid your bill, or made arrangements to do so. But the root cost was managable. Something that is just not true in the system today. So I hope one day we do see Health Care reform. But it looks as if until that day comes, the best I can hope for is Health Insurance reform.