The Health Care Debate Is Making Me Sick

[furrbear]

Satirist Brian Unger says the fight going on over health care in the U.S. reveals how sick and twisted the nation is. Coming together on a health care plan might not just give us better access to doctors, he says — it might make us better people.

From Monday's All Things Considered:

The Health Care Debate Is Making Me Sick

by Brian Unger

August 10, 2009

The health care debate is toxic, revealing a lot about us as a nation. And it feels embarrassing — like the whole world can see our underpants. Or hear us fighting in the kitchen.

First, most of us can't describe accurately the details of the health care reform now under debate. That makes us look stupid or too busy to care.

Second, most of us can't describe accurately the health care or insurance we currently have, so that makes us look kind of stupid, too, or lazy.

Some of us don't care about people who don't have health insurance, so that makes us seem unsympathetic or super lucky.

Most of us don't understand that we're already paying for people who don't have health care — which makes us too busy to care, in denial or merely rich.

Some of us — a lot of us — already receive health care under some form of government plan, but don't believe in health care under some form of government plan. That makes us hypocritical or selfish. In some camps, I hear that makes us patriotic.

A lot of us are a combination of these things: too busy, lazy, a bit stupid perhaps, lucky, unsympathetic, in-denial, really rich, hypocritical, selfish ... and patriotic.

We're having an identity crisis when it comes to caring about the nation's health, which makes me think what we really need is psychotherapy. But, sadly, that's not covered under most health plans, if you have one at all.

To many, health care reform is scary, like someone's building a halfway house for criminals right at their doorstep. It's a N.I.M.B.Y. ("Not In My Backyard") issue evolved into a N.O.M.B.O. ("Not On My Back, Obama") issue.

People never change. But policy can, so our health care reformers must get more creative and visionary.

How about a Cash for Clunkers Program? Not for cars, but for older, beat-up people whose bodies have wear and tear, and can't go long distances when they're filled with gas?

Our government is offering us $4,500 to buy a new car. Can it also offer humans incentives — say, a tax break — to join a gym? To quit smoking? Or to buy produce from local farmers? Reward schools that teach kids how to eat right and exercise? You know, kind of like that class we used to offer kids called "gym."

Let's pay people to stay healthy, instead of only paying for them when they get sick. Then maybe our nation will find its compassion, the one true antidote for its health care identity crisis.

Comments

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

What I dislike about the health care “debate” — it’s not a debate, it’s not even close — is not the fact that everyone is scared; it’s that many people seem to think the other side is motivated by evil, avarice or indifference, rather than realizing the other side is motivated by equally deep fears.

I am opposed to government run healthcare. I am opposed to what the President and his allies call the “public option.” Opposed, opposed, opposed. The reason why I’m opposed is that I have seen government health care, and it terrifies me.

Walter Reed Hospital was overrun with rats and insects. The government was (is still, as far as I know) looking at reducing the cost of service members’ benefits by shifting the burden of coverage to their privately held plans (thus shifting who pays for it, and creating an illusion that money is being saved). The nation’s Indian tribes, whose medical care we are obligated by treaty to provide, get less than a quarter the spending per–capita of prisoners in the federal prison system. The few areas of government healthcare which are held up as models of efficiency really are not: the numbers are deceptive due to the way these organizations are structured. The efficiencies are not as high as people claim, and whenever someone says “let’s see an independent audit,” the government says “no.”

That’s my understanding of the current state of government–run healthcare. It’s better than nothing, but it doesn’t inspire confidence: and now we’re talking about creating a “public option” which will cover tens of millions of people, probably done with comparable effectiveness? That idea terrifies me, it genuinely does.

And I’m not blind to the flip side: that insurance companies have a horrific record of using every legal trick to drop expensive clients from their rosters (“rescission” being a horrible Orwellian euphemism for “we’re going to break a contract and let someone die to improve our bottom line”), that medical costs are exploding, that the bureaucracy crushes the souls of those caught within it, that vast numbers are uninsured, that the uninsured and the insured often get charged vastly different rates for identical procedures… for anyone who is caught up in the terror of modern healthcare, I can’t blame you one bit for your fears. They’re perfectly reasonable fears.

But so are mine.

And I think that if we’re going to make any progress, we’re all going to have to sit down and say this to each other.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

My own proposal, by the way:

I am willing to let the government enact any kind of national health care plan it wants, so long as it is applied to federal employees, Congress, the White House, the federal prison system, and the Indian Nations for a five–year test period. Total transparency through and through: any group of citizens can get the complete accounting data for the program. At the end of the five–year test period we won’t have wild–ass guesses about costs, expenses, stumbling blocks, etc., we’ll have an empirical five–year study.

If the White House is right and the President’s proposal is wise, then his wisdom will be demonstrated. If the White House is not right and this plan is folly, that too will be demonstrated. Either way, the American public wins.

[winbear.livejournal.com]

IBM has an annual incentive program to keep their employees healthy. The focus changes slightly each year, but basically they offer $150 if you can make a healthy lifestyle change for 12 weeks. In the 4 calendar years I've been with them, they've had a "quit smoking", "exercise X amount Y times per week for Z weeks" (more intense programs can complete the requirements faster), an "eat better for 12 weeks" with guidelines and another scheme that required weighing in and improving your blood pressure over 12 weeks by various means.