My Personal Take on the Healthcare Issue

I'm not a doctor person. I literally only go to a doctor when I self-diagnose on webmb.com and the diagnosis comes up "cancer" (actually every webmb diagnosis comes up cancer). I then go to a doctor for an assurance it's something that I really thought it was - like hives or a hangnail.

Seriously, I've never had a doctor do anything for me except to either cause me pain, discomfort or push some pill at me that will make me feel either like sleeping for two days or saying inappropriate things to coworkers.

So I'll tell you that the whole healthcare reform thing should be what I want to fight about least of all - but it's not. And here's why...

I never could understand that in the United States you can actually go bankrupt because you don't have healthcare. I could never understand why when in the rare instances when I do go to a doctor and I am covered by whatever insurance I have, the statement is some ridiculous amount - like $5,000 for tests run at an allergist or $2,000 for an emergency room visit on Thanksgiving for a lymph node infection (not including the antibiotics).

But then I do know why - it's precisely that little insurance card you have that your employer probably pays for. It's people like a coworker who goes to the podiatrist for a pedicure because the copay is cheaper than the salon. It's people who go to the dermatologist instead of the spa for a facial. It's people who go to the doctor for a cough when they really need Robitussin. This happens all the time. And it's the doctors who "upsell" their services. And they do - they medicate us, order an obscene number of tests and get indignant if you question them. They after all, are doctors. They have the final say. They are all-knowing.

It's the insurance companies who meter and dole out procedures. So easy to say no to everything because paying up brings their profits down. Insurance companies aren't on the side of the insured by their very nature.

So what do we do? Well, President Obama and President Clinton and Senator Kennedy have all fought for universal healthcare. President Obama's plan currently makes sense for the American people - have your current plan stay more or less status quo. Eliminate pre-existing condition clauses. Make catastrophic healthcare mandatory for all americans. Offer a public option. That's fair. That's actually free market enterprise at work. Have a public option that will force the private insurance companies to keep their rates fair. Make healthcare mandatory the same as car insurance or home insurance when you have a mortgage.

But some people want to see the President fail. These people say that there are Death Panels, that the DMV is going to give you a PAP smear and that you're going to have to wait on line for years, perhaps decades to get a checkup, a pacemaker, a broken bone set. These people don't even know what they're fighting against. They use buzzwords like - Socialism, Communism, Tax Hikes. They don't want to compromise and they will stop at nothing until this proposal is killed and our President defeated - even if it tears apart our country.

I stopped at the bank today near Mt. Sinai Hospital. I passed the Humana clinic. The doors opened as I walked by and I looked in. The conservatives' nightmare of healthcare's future was staring at me right now - lines and lines. People waiting in chairs looking like they had been there for hours. Elderly patients being bussed in from points West and North. Spending hours perhaps days to see a doctor to be told that they had a pre-existing condition or to just takes these painkillers. What I didn't see were any of those conservatives there to look at the broken system as it is right now.

I have friends, good friends that have chronic illnesses and I have friends that have children with chronic illnesses. I am willing to pay a few dollars more to see that they will never have to go bankrupt if their child needs chemo or a liver transplant. And I am willing to ask them to do the same for me. You want to call that socialism? Go right ahead. I call it society. And I back my President's plan. Do you?

I would love to know your thoughts.