Little Girls and the big bad health reform
One cannot escape the media frenzy about the sweet young 11 year old girl kidnapped for 18 years by some wacko in Antioch. Details cannot be minute enough to elude broadcast — what the tents looked like, the vacant stare of the victim’s daughter, fathered by the wacko, the way the victim answered phone calls for his printing business, and all the rest.
In contrast, we can’t seem to find an article that accurately analyzes the benefits that the proposed reforms of the broken healthcare system might produce, or the damages brought down on us by the unwieldy patchwork that is the current system. Instead, we seem deluged by scary stories about “death panels” and how “the government is going to pull the plug on grandma” and the like. Fox News, of course, treats this drivel as fact. The rest seem to treat it as reasonable debate with virtually not a word about how the current system does much worse.
Tides Momentum Conference Website
Crystal Hayling,
Roger Hickey, Anthony Wright, and Jacob Hacker, Momentum presenters.
At our Momentum Conference, beginning this coming Monday afternoon, we hope to bring some rationality to the conversation about healthcare. Last year, Jacob Hacker (author of the “public option” idea) laid out his view of the prospects for real reform if Obama were to win the General Election. Now that we are there, and this is the highest thing on the President’s agenda, we’ve witnessed, as we have so often, the devolution of an intelligent policy debate into a mud-slinging contest in which alarmists are decrying things that don’t exist (death panels and plug pullers) and progressives — ever the earnest ones — are trying to convince people through complicated rational arguments.
What seems to command attention on Fox are these senior citizens who want to “keep the government out of the health insurance business” but even more adamantly demand that Congress keep its hands off Medicare…one of those government-run healthcare programs. That media really don’t say that much in response to such irrational debate is fascinating…and sad.
First thing next Tuesday, we are convening three very different folks to bring us up to date on where we stand — Anthony Wright leads Health Access California and has led numerous state and local campaigns for health reform; Crystal Hayling, CEO of Blue Shield of California Foundation and has worked tirelessly on healthcare delivery especially to women and children, and Roger Hickey, co-Director of Campaign for America’s Future, a leading advocate for national reform. It should be a refreshing session, especially if you are a Fox News watcher.
Why is it, I cannot help but wonder, that the current folks entrusted to oversee most covered people are getting off the hook in the midst of this swirling debate? The insurance companies are no one’s friend. Anyone you know who has dealt with a serious medical situation would hardly argue for the current system. These companies engage in terrible practices, trying desperately to pursue their business model that says they should collect as much money as possible and pay out as little as possible. How can anyone think this is going to lead to good health outcomes. Nor can anyone explain how having these companies provide health insurance to everyone will change anything. Yes, they may be forced to accept pre-existing conditions, but, bottom line, they will collect as much as they can, pay out as little as possible, and pocket the rest. The French, with their excellent single payer system, are laughing their heads off. Hopefully, though, we’ll move on from town hall meetings and get this thing done in some acceptable form. Tuesday morning at Momentum, we’ll be trying to figure out how that might be possible.