Avoid the Bluster and Join the Dialogue
The current debate on healthcare reform in Congress and around the country is very troubling for me as a man, a father, a husband, a son, a brother, a friend, an American and a human being. While there are many sides of the debate and I do not profess to have any special insight as to the specific problems or even the solutions being discussed, the debate has shown in stark relief that there remain many among us that simply do not care about anyone but themselves. It is disgraceful that some are trying to hijack town hall meetings and the very important and necessary debates about healthcare reform with shouting and other disruptive behavior. In this economy, in this ever smaller, more compact world, this is very worrisome.
Whether ignorant or intentionally misleading, there has been much said to demonize the government option. Sarah Pallin joined the chorus of shouters with a nonsensical quip about “death panels” denying healthcare treatment citing her own child with Downs’s syndrome as she made her case. Have Sarah Pallin and her family been so lucky as to never have a health insurance procedure denied by a private health insurance company? It was not long ago that many of American’s were concerned that private health insurers were denying care to millions to ensure their profits and now private health insurers are being praised as universal healthcare providers protecting the unlimited health coverage demands for us all. How is that possible? As a mother of a child with Down’s syndrome, it is quite probable that her family will consume more in health care benefits than they will ever contribute in the form of health insurance premiums. Instead of standing in the path to deny coverage to millions, she and her family should instead thank the millions of Americans that currently subsidize their current and future care.
It is also confusing to me that many small business owners are allegedly fighting to kill the government healthcare option being debated in Congress and simultaneously fighting to retain the independence of a different government option for healthcare in California, the State Compensation Insurance Fund. It was only a half dozen years ago when rising medical costs and other factors were blamed by private workers’ compensation insurers as they stopped writing workers’ compensation insurance coverage for employers. For as many as 50% of the employers in California at that time, the State Compensation Insurance Fund was their only option during that crisis. Since then, the crisis of workers’ compensation insurance availability has subsided after many reforms and other machinations, but all of us remember that private insurers could not be counted on to provide coverage in all circumstances. Crisis has returned again to workers’ compensation in California as the governor and our state legislature threatens to sell a portion of the State Compensation Insurance Fund to private interests in an effort to close the state budget gap. Employers across the state agree that the state needs an independent and stable State Compensation Insurance Fund option to ensure that all businesses have access to affordable comprehensive workers’ compensation insurance coverage and that all workers are covered.
If there is no debate that all workers’ must have medical insurance coverage if they are injured at work, how can there be any debate that millions of men, women and children should go about their daily lives without even the most modest protection?
As millions of Americans without access to healthcare fail to be immunized from infectious diseases that many thought were eradicated years ago, are we all not more at risk?
Guarantee health insurance commission on the government option to life & health insurance agents across the country and their opposition should be eliminated. Likewise, health insurers should also rest assured that that very real cost would not be a competitive disadvantage for them and they too should be less vocal about the specter of the government option.
We need to get on the same page now. Not having health coverage is very bad. Any kind of health protection is better than none at all. Private health insurers deny coverage to many people now any public health coverage option will like require some tough decisions about care as well. Please stop shouting. We need to listen, really listen to one another and make many difficult choices ahead together.
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