It's frustrating to say the least and frightening as our citizenry is over a decade older, over a decade larger to watch the candidates bicker about health care reform. Resurrecting the ideas of a patient bill of rights, universal access, and the troubling problem of the uninsured is yesterday's news and the candidates are arguing about it as if it's a suddenly apparent problem.
Perhaps an approach should start modeling itself after another highly regulated "business" in the US, the business of education. Stop all the nonsensical and complex discussion about Universal health care and establish it...period. Use any model you like and get it into law. Then, fix it, tweak it, have states vie for taxes for it and have campaigns seeking additional funding for regional fixes if necessary. Leave the private insurers as an option, much like private schools, and yes, local tax dollars go to support local medical costs of every area. Like the schools, that will leave poorer areas with fewer dollars to support their systems, and like schools in poorer areas, other means of support will come from the federal government. This approach will also take care of that horrendous real estate market, as more stable areas will have something besides "redone windows" to offer new residents. It also addresses the excuse that the federal government can't act because of states rights.
It's frightening to hear the candidates talk about mandatory health insurance, requiring individuals to buy health insurance without talking about mandatory basic provisions for insurers that can be supported through the courts after the fact and by regulation before the fact. It's ridiculous to be bantering around all the talk of a patient's bill of rights as if assuring us all that it's a good idea for us to have decent medical insurance coverage will change a darn thing, it will not. Law, penalty and oversight are the only means of reforming the business of health insurance. Clamping down on excessive costs justified by some imaginary "going rate", the cost of equipment that those outside of the insurance world will never get the benefit of, and the infamous cost of "malpractice insurance" is stupid. Whining that oversight will cost the federal government or state governments money is ridiculous in lieu of the money being spent daily on federal activities and in lieu of the fact that one of the only growing job sectors this month was government, (the other was healthcare ).
It's disappointing that our candidates remain so far removed from the experience of life as most of us have it that they can argue over yesterday's news. Get real or get out.
