Monday, March 22, 2010

Health care reform, a brief thought

I am a big proponent of health care needing to change. I've had enough personal experience to have a deep-seated loathing for the insurance companies and their vested interest in doing as much as possible to deny coverage. I'm still fighting my previous insurance company because of one day my son spent in the hospital. They disagree with the doctor and the hospital who kept him in. Because, they would know.

So Health Care Reform? I'm sorry, but yes. Absolutely.

Here's where it gets tricky though. I believe this debate is less about health care and more the Republican's Great Stand in a power-play with a Democratic Washington. Because, when you look at the bill provisions, both parties aren't that far apart. Republicans and Democrats absolutely could have worked on this together, but instead, Republicans chose this issue to stand over, and lost.

I think the consequences to the Republican party are irreparable, because now that the day is won by the Democrats, the news focus will change from news of the battle to news of the victor. And, when the provisions start taking effect, and more Americans actually have insurance coverage, more individual plans will be made available, and the down-and-dirty process of enacting health care reform starts, people will pipe down. They might not want to give up their new health care policy. The fight was charged, and bitter, but in the end, as always, it was Politics, and the true effects of this decision won't be felt for years.

I will say, whichever side you are on, the one thing that absolutely needed to happen was a reform of the health care system in America.

I will also say, whichever side you are on, this fight was more politics than policy.

Will Healthcare Reform cure all? No, but it's a step in the direction everyone wants: better healthcare coverage, more healthcare coverage for poorer Americans, and better choices.

Hate it, love it, it matters not. Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, whoever, at the end of the day, prior to today, health care policy in Washington was written by the insurance companies. You may not agree with how health care is being reformed, but you have to agree it needed to be reformed, and America, IMO, couldn't afford to not do something. It's just a shame this had to be the battle ground. It's a shame we can't have a united government working in the interests of America. It's a shame Democrats and Republicans are so caught up in party politics they forget that the majority of Americans suffer for it.

And, at the end of the day, I believe most Americans were in the middle on this particular battle. The majority wanted a reform, but between the bullets flying from the Right and the Evilization of Health Care Reform, and all the noise, the majority, like me, stayed quiet, watching, wondering, hoping that at the end, what we end up with is not what we already have, a ridiculously broken system based on profit margins for insurers.

2 comments:

David said...

There was a time when I used to hope that sensible Republicans could retake control of their party. I'm a Democrat, but one-party dominance always ends badly, so I'd like to see an effective two-party system, where both parties are reasonably sensible.

But the behavior of the GOP since the ascent of Reagan, and even more since the ascent of Little Georgie, makes me want to them utterly destroyed, smashed, obliterated. I no longer feel at all reasonable about this.

Lahdeedah said...

I actually agree. I am also a believer in an effective two-party system, I've viewed it as a sort of balance, but this abuse of the GOP: fear as a political tool, re-integration of church and state are my two biggest issues... makes me cringe in terror at the thought of a GOP nation.