Which one do you choose?
Today, I began watching news coverage of the Health care debate, as the House convened for a special session to discuss and vote on the bills on the floor.
Listening today, one GOP congressman basically said -
“We have two bills. One that seeks to do a massive overhaul of the system as we know it. and another that keeps what works and only tries to change/fix those things we know do not work.”
That was all I needed to hear. For all intents and purposes he was right. The Democrats and the GOP are both touting bills – one is very aggressive while the other bill is much more moderate in the changes it hopes to accomplish.
But hearing him say that, I realized the real issue with health care reform is whether we are finally going to think for the future, or think for today? Are we going to think about what the bill does to/for us today, or are we going to think about how much better or worse off Americans will be years down the road?
Reform should not be an iteration of the status quo. It should not be the same TV show plot repackaged with new characters. Change is not always comfortable – Lord knows little change that this country has seen has come agreeably or comfortably.
So this tit-for-tat and misrepresentation of what the changes progressives are trying to accomplish should not be a surprise either. Because one of the things that never changes about the process of change are the people that are opposed to it – because they only see it in terms of what stands to be lost.
The secret about change and reform though is that when it is done correctly, everyone stands to gain. With health care, as it becomes more affordable, it will become accessible to more people, which means that hospitals and taxpayers will not have to eat the costs of those people who are uninsured and choosing not to have health insurance because they could not afford it or were not really forced to do so.
So what is the spirit of health care reform truly going to be?
We could make change comfortable for most people today, by focusing on incentivizing the reduction of health cost, rather than making it happen with proper mandates in place. We can tout that a smaller bill is the obvious choice simply because of brevity, or we can assume a system that is filled with convoluted policies, technicalities, and loopholes needs something as robust and detailed to make sure loopholes will not continued to be exploited. We can assume that you can get something for nothing, and seriously believe we can reform health care without eating some costs up front. Or we can take a realistic approach to this and say that someone will eat the high costs of health care regardless – and right now the people are losing out, while insurance providers and hospitals and doctors stand to gain. We can tell anyone who will listen this is a government takeover, and be afraid and skeptical of the government interaction with anything. Or we can be reasonable and call this what it is – reform that works.
The House passed the bill yesterday. The vote was literally 50/50 for and against. Now it is on to the Senate. I would hope that we see a selfless health care reform move through Senate as well – so that years later, we can be proud of out lower health costs and higher access, and stronger GDP, and look back on today’s debate with amusement. Amusement that we could have been so misguided on the benefits of sweeping health care reform.
Popularity: 1%