Health Care Wake-up Call

Congress is "utterly asleep" and "clueless" on the whole health care debate, and the members need a wake-up call about the realities of the system, according to Dr. Jeffrey Feldman, editor of political blog Frameshop, and contributor to the Huffington Post. Ultimately, there is a lot of blowing smoke and soundbites on the issue, as well as entrenched outrage and suspicion. Thus, I am with Dr. Feldman on the need to cut through the politics and solve the problem.

Supposedly, the health care debate is between one group of people who make fortunes via the insanely profitable insurance and pharmaceutical industries and another group of people who want to make sure everybody in American has access to 'affordable' health care. Consider this simple fact: The number of Americans without health care coverage is so big, and has been growing for such a long time, that we can now simply say that the United States is a country with a systemic lack of health care for its citizens.

This is a salient point that needs much honesty. The reality is that America has the best available health care in one of the worst possible systems. And that's just not right. So, how to maintain the quality care without sacrificing it for efficiency and universality.

In a nation with a systemic lack of health care, there is a radical divide between the haves and the have-nots. Those with health care live in a world that is radically different from those who live in a world without it. The haves are able to treat their health like any other good or service in the economy. Because health care is a privilege of income, the haves can go out and buy health care whenever they want, even to the point of excess. And so health care becomes not just a means to feeling better, but a luxury good to be consumed with lavish abandon.

As much as the tone of this can be disconcerting, and it invokes passionate ideological responses, there is much validity to the statement.

Those without health care, by contrast, live in a much different world. For the have-nots, appetite for procedures and pills in the health care market is replaced by constant concern about a future health crisis or incident. Life without health care becomes a constant game of odds making: I if I spend X dollars on this procedure, will I be able to afford Y and Z 18 months down the road? How long, at my age, would it be wise to go uninsured? Can I risk coverage for my children, but not for myself? Is 5 years too long to go without getting a full physical? How about 7? If the lump in my breast does not hurt, can it be that bad? And so on, and so forth. What happens when millions of people spend decades without health care is so shocking and so heartbreaking, that anyone who thinks about it would be instantly offended by the current Congressional debate.

Again, I understand the emotional and ideological hairs going up on the back of some necks. Yet, the only conclusion I can draw is this: It's just not right. This sort of discrepancy and systemic failure is just not right. What the answer is? Well, that's the problem. But the fact is we have a problem. And the realities of today are just not right.