Americans like what is familiar, even if better solution might be out there
| Monday, Oct 26 2009 04:43 PM
Last Updated Monday, Oct 26 2009 04:43 PM
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The health care debate has polarized the nation so much that it now seems prudent to pause and ascertain the facts before we float farther on the waves of this debate.
About 45.7 million Americans do not have health insurance, if we accept the word of both the U.S. Census Bureau and the Kaiser Family Foundation's Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. Some 83.1 million Americans, according to the same sources, have government insurance (i.e., Medicare, Medicaid, S-CHIP, Veterans Affairs, and TRICARE). What we vehemently don't want is any form of socialized health care whatsoever, never mind that the aforementioned government insurance is essentially socialized care.
We should stop deluding ourselves and face reality: on top of the 45.7 million Americans without insurance, we've got 83.1 million Americans who have no private insurance, but rather government-subsidized health insurance. If you remove government from this equation, these are Americans who might not otherwise afford ever-out-of-control private heath insurance costs. If these Americans could afford their own health insurance, they wouldn't need the government to carry them along.
That leaves 128.8 million Americans who are or effectively would be without insurance.
Americans are very aware that health care reform is a matter of urgency. But, as always, we are slow to accept change, any change. We like what is familiar to us even when we suspect that its not the best for us or that it cannot last forever in present form without changes.
When Congressman Kevin McCarthy held a town hall meeting Aug. 26 in Bakersfield (I was in attendance), he noted that health care reform is needed. He told us that Medicare will be depleted by 2017. That is only about seven years from now. What he didn't tell us is what will happen to the millions of Americans who depend on Medicare once it hits a cul de sac. As a Republican, he said he is opposed to HR 3200, the dominant Democratic health care reform bill, but offered no clear-cut alternative.
It is disingenuous at best of the Republicans to say on one hand that health care reform is needed and on the other to demonize HR 3200 without tabling their own clear vision so that the Americans can have intelligent choices.
Socialized health care and government take-over are smokescreens the people on the right are using to shoot down HR 3200.
We cannot and have not been able to run a capitalistic form of government per se. Our armed forces, police forces, education system, firefighters, among other areas, are not left to private and profit. They are government controlled. Welfare in this country is a good example of a government social program. I don't contend that all these programs are perfectly run by the government, but that government's involvement in them is indispensable.
On health care reform, we must separate passions and emotions from rational and intelligent analysis and do what is right not just for ourselves but for future generations as well. And for future senior citizens who will need the health care that we enjoy today but who might have nothing because we were too selfish and or too scared to enact change.
We should be guided by simple questions:
* Is health care reform needed in this country right now?
* Can the health care status quo last into foreseeable future without collapse?
* Can Americans keep up with the ever escalating private insurance costs, without any reforms, into the foreseeable future?
* Can Americans keep up with ever rising costs of much needed drugs without any pharmaceutical reforms in the country?
* If government stays completely clear of anything heath care/health insurance, would we be better off or not?
I believe health care reform is badly needed in this country. We are unfairly using this occasion to define ourselves as partisans --Republicans or Democrats, playing politics with our lives. We should be Americans first.
I have never seen a sick Republican or Democrat -- only sick Americans who need care. Now more than ever, we need a united stand, with thoughtful health care dialogue.
Njau Njembura Njoroge of Bakersfield runs a local business. He is a native of Kenya.
