Visionary Healthcare

No matter whether you are for or against the healthcare bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives Sunday, you can’t feel good about the process.

During the past many months I have been impressed with Rep. Betsy Markey’s willingness to stay in touch with her district and reach out for feedback.  She personally came to my office a few months ago to find out my opinion on reform and she went out of her way to host our team during our recent trip to Washington to receive the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.  Kudos to her for taking the time and making the effort to stay in touch.  However, when I read last week in The Fort Collins Coloradoan she planned to vote for the healthcare bill, I figured that the pressure got intense, and I understand why she carried through with the plan

I’m actually not sure what else we expected, she is in a tough spot.

The current House leadership is clearly consumed with the ends over the means.  They may believe that what they are doing is right thing for America, but how can they justify pressuring members of their own party to get what they want?  The most raw, bare-knuckles political antics of my lifetime have now been focused squarely on well-meaning people like Betsy Markey.  With the threat of being cut off from her own party and the future, I’m not sure that she had much of a choice.

Even if the healthcare bill is the right thing to do, using such tactics, (forcing a vote at midnight Sunday night just hours after the bill has even been published…forcing a vote late in the night on Christmas Eve…and the list goes on) sets the nation back in our ability to create public policy at all.

And, after all that, it remains my opinion that the bill is not intended to address healthcare reform at all.  My reasons?

1) First, there is no serious attempt to address tort reform.  While there are legitimate arguments as to whether tort reform is a big issue in healthcare or a little issue in healthcare, there is no reasonable argument that it is no issue at all.  By failing to address tort reform, we must conclude that the bill is political at its core, and not designed to reform the healthcare system.

2) Special kickbacks. In order to get the bill passed, kickbacks had to be given to many special interest groups.  If you are on the inside, you got a good deal; if you are not, you didn’t.  That is not public policy, that is anarchy.

3) If the bill addresses so many issues, why did Congress exempt themselves from the bill?

4) The bill is created by people who have demonstrated that they have no understanding of the healthcare system.  If the intent was truly to make sure that the people in the country who could not get access to healthcare were covered, there are far less expensive ways than this $1 trillion monster.  The same people who say that our healthcare is too expensive have now added $1 trillion to the bottom line.  For that much money, we could have solved a lot of problems without having to blackmail members of Congress.

5) The problem is not health insurance.  Health insurers make a comparatively small profit, just barely in the top 100 most profitable industries in the country.  The problem is that government started programs in 1966 (Medicare and Medicaid) and then refused to fund them, pushing insurance companies to cover the difference.

Unfortunately, the legislation passed on Sunday is more of the same.  As I watched the clapping and cheering on the House floor when it was all done, I could not help but wonder if they knew at all what they had done.  Did they know that all of us will have less access to care and what we do have will be more expensive? Did they know that now, instead of a limited number of people who can’t get coverage, there will be many, many times that number who can’t get access at all???  The wealthy will be able to buy the coverage they want, creating an even larger disparity between the “haves” and the “have-nots.”  In general, the problem just got worse, and the process that lead us there was most unfortunate.

Read Full Post »