HEALTH CARE NIGHTMARE

Most of us can agree on a few things about health care in America that are important to note. Those things include the following.

1. Among nations of any size, the United States has the best health care available in the world.
2. Our system of health care is broken and must be repaired. It cannot continue in its current form.
3. Single payer health care systems in the UK and in Canada do not work well at all and cannot begin to compare to the quality of care available here.
4. The 50 million people without health insurance in the United States number is oft repeated but never confirmed with actual hard evidence so the actual number is an unknown.
5. The answers to our health care issues are complex, not easily resolved and require careful, thoughtful consideration.

Thus, the argument presented by Obama in the article below, essentially a 'now or never' position, is simply specious. There is no emergency. No rush is necessary. In fact, hurrying the process appears to be nothing more than a 'stampede the herd' effort by the Obama gang to push through their preferred program before anyone has a clue how to pay for it or, more significantly, how it would impact our quality of medicine.

Politicians might want to get this done this year for their own self-serving reasons. Screw them. They have the best health care money can buy provided to them by us, the taxpayers. Maybe a good starting point in this discussion is to insure that they will end up with the same "free" health care coverage that they want to force upon the rest of us. That just might slow down the rush to get this done NOW.

There is no value in copying the UK or Canada. Both systems are rife with major problems and neither provides the kind of health care quality that we enjoy here.

We need a system that fits our needs, not a copy of something from somewhere else. So far, our national level efforts at medical care, namely Medicare and Veterans Health Care, are wholly or partially failed. Medicare especially.

Obama wants to create a stampede. That is a sure sign that we all need to take our time and do this right. In the most innovative nation in history, this can be achieved.

Just not overnight.



Obama says health care a must this year _ or never
By PHILIP ELLIOTTAssociated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama warned Thursday that if Congress doesn't deliver health care legislation by the end of the year the opportunity will be lost, a plea to political supporters to pressure lawmakers to act.
"If we don't get it done this year, we're not going to get it done," Obama told supporters by phone as he flew home on Air Force One from a West Coast fundraising trip.
Obama's political organization, Organizing for America, invited campaign volunteers to a midday conference call to describe a nationwide June 6 kickoff for its health care campaign. The president's message to his re-election campaign-in-waiting was simple: If volunteers don't pressure lawmakers to support the White House's goal on health care, Washington would drag its feet and nothing would change.
"The election in November, it didn't bring about change. It gave us an opportunity for change," Obama said.
The presidential plea came as lawmakers prepare for an aggressive schedule of work aimed at producing comprehensive health care overhaul bills in the House and Senate by August.
Committee hearings—and soon thereafter votes—will start next week, as soon as lawmakers return to Washington from a weeklong recess. Many members of Congress spent the break holding town hall meetings and other forums with their constituents about health care, even as opponents and supporters of Obama's plans ramped up television and radio ads for and against.
"I think the status quo is unacceptable and that we've got to get it done this year," Obama repeated, ginning up his supporters for a door-to-door and phone-to-phone canvass similar to his presidential campaign.
Obama's top aides, including former campaign manager David Plouffe, told the supporters that they have a challenge ahead of them.
"If the country stands with the president and if the country is demanding health care reform than we'll get it done; Washington will not have any option but to follow us," Plouffe said on the call, which was not announced on the White House's official schedule.
The president's conversation with his supporters was part pep talk and part a nod to political reality. Obama is looking to use his network of supporters to deliver a campaign promise, and if he seeks a second term in 2012—an almost certainty—he hopes to keep many of those volunteers engaged in person and online.
The president said the costs of the nation's $2.5 trillion health care system are crushing families and businesses and pose the largest threat to the economy.
The White House is leaving it to lawmakers to work out the details of a health care plan, but Obama has said it should ensure choice and lower costs, while extending coverage to the 50 million Americans now uninsured. The cost of accomplishing that has been estimated around $1.5 trillion, and figuring out how to pay is emerging as a major challenge for Congress and the White House.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Sphere: Related Content