March 13, 2010 6:18 AM

We're better than this...aren't we?

Americans and their lawmakers are dramatically out of sync on health care, with large majorities of people looking for bipartisan cooperation that’s nowhere in sight. A new Associated Press-GfK Poll finds a widespread hunger for improvements to the health care system, which suggests President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies have a political opening to push their plan. Half of all Americans say health care should be changed a lot or “a great deal,” and only 4 percent say it shouldn’t be changed at all.

Listen to Republicans, and you’d be forgiven for coming to believe that evil, nefarious Democrats are trying to force health care reform on an American public that just simply doesn’t want it. Period. End of story. It’s crap, and they have to know it at some level deep in their black hearts…yet that’s the narrative, and one that damn few Democrats- save for Alan Grayson- seem of a mind to counter.

The reality is that the health care debate is much more complex than the caricatures and sound bites those on the Right would have us believe. It’s not about the evils of a “government health care system” (Medicare, anyone??). No, what it’s really about is a system that cares more about profit than patients. Insurance companies care more about their balance sheet and stock price than they do about health care. They deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, and they cancel customers whose health status makes them no longer profitable. While I understand the realities of a free-market system, I simply can’t get past the reality that life and death shouldn’t be based on profitability. I don’t deny the right of insurance companies to make a profit; that’s why they’re in business, after all. But their business, which at it’s most basic IS life and death- should not be treated in the same cold, calculating manner as a company that makes staplers. When your core business is life, death, and human well-being, conventional profitability concerns simply cannot and should not be the be-all and end-all.

The reality is that our health care system is broken, and it’s not a simple matter of applying a few simple fixes here and there. There is simply no human, defensible reason that every American shouldn’t be guaranteed quality, affordable health care. If Canada, France, England, and Norway can accomplish universal health care, then why can’t the most powerful economy on the face of the planet do the same thing? The answer is ridiculously simple, of course: money. Too many politically powerful and entrenched interests make money off the status quo…and they have too many Congresscritters in their pockets. Changing health care in this country would no doubt involve rearranging the economic order in the health care sector. To think that the talented, capable, and dedicated capitalists who run insurance companies couldn’t adapt is absurd. American capitalism is all about innovation. Adapt or die. It’s a simple concept, and businesses from coast to coast deal with this reality every day. Why should insurance companies and health care providers be any different?

A truly great nation would commit to providing quality affordable health care for ALL citizens. After all, if we can fund and conduct two wars halfway around the world, and if we can maintain the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear armaments, a reasonable person could expect that we possess the wherewithal- and the will- to provide health care for every American. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s time for Republicans (AND Democrats) to stop hiding behind lies, propaganda, and talking points as they defend their well-heeled benefactors in the health care industry.

Nancy Pelosi is a coward.

WE DESERVE BETTER.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on March 13, 2010 6:18 AM.

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Things I think I might be thinking.... is the next entry in this blog.

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