KevinMD Wants A Response
My response:
- The most heavenly social program is hell underfunded.
- Blind faith? When have any single-payer folks ever said we blindly support single-payer and appropriate government appropriations (say that three times fast)? Will health care reform be easy? Pass one law and everything magically gets fixed? The wool’s not pulled that tightly over my eyes. Fixing the health care system isn’t going to be easy, and it isn’t going to be cheap. It will take years of planning, tons of effort, and lots of discussion. But of course it can happen.
Why do I think we need to do it? Because of the mess. The mess of billions of dollars wasted on duplicated tests and administrative overhead. The mess that millions of people in the richest nation in the world decide between eating and buying their medications (which would often prevent doctor and ED visits in the first place), or that many honestly consider waiting out an appendicitis because they lack insurance and know their financial lives will be ruined by a $50,000 hospital bill. The mess that fragmented care complicates care so greatly. The mess that other countries can apparently do it–and for cheaper–and we apparently can’t. I could go on.
Why do I think we can do it? Because we’re America , god damn it. We’re the land of opportunity. Innovation. Creativity.
We invented the car. We flew at Kitty Hawk. Electricity. The telephone! We created a system of railroads across a gigantic country. And then later, we made gigantic highways to cover it even better. We can do whatever the hell we want with this country–that’s the beauty of it! And you’re honestly telling me we don’t have it in us to fix our own health care system? To take better care of ourselves? That it’s not possible? Of course it is! (I sometimes wonder what our health care system would be like today if our leaders back in 2001 fought so strongly for fixing our health care system the way they fought so strongly to fund and go to war. A trillion bucks could go a long way.)
Do I think the government funds things correctly currently? Often, no. Does that mean that it can’t in the future? Of course not. Do I think it’ll take a massive, gigantic change to our government and culture to fix things? Absolutely, just like it will take a massive, gigantic change to fix our health care system. People always bitch and moan about “the government,” but what is the government but its citizens?
And by the way, I’ve never gotten an answer from you HSA supporters as to how in the hell they’re going to make a dent in our health care expenditures.