Recent comments

I heard Mr. Potter's story about going to his home town in Tennesee and seeing the "third world" scene as ordinary people tried to get some health care. Coincidentally, and not to pick on Tenn, I had just Googled "what if I lose my health benefits" and in the large amount of empty hits that amounted to "give us your money and we'll give you an unpredictable product" I found a column from a paper in Chatanooga where the writer was helpfully explaining that Walgreen's offered monthly (or biweekly?) blood pressure checks, etc to the unemployed. I appreciate the great job some of Congress is trying to do on health care reform. I dread the results the Senate will come up with. So many say this is a complicated issue -- it really isn't. Why should Americans have to beg around the back door to be covered for health care while our government trades with our tax money and in some cases directly aids with our tax money in countries that have better access to health care than we do? And the elected officials who carry out these policies are covered by health plans paid for by the US taxpayer, of course. The principle of risk, on which private insurance is based, is fundamentally incompatible with the uncertainties of human health, and therefore private insurance is fundamentally incompatible as the primary source of health coverage, which is why this model has been abandoned in every other country that's tried it. As a secondary source, private insurance is extremely important and is available in all countries that have national universal health coverage (that's why I hate the term "single payer" -- it sounds like there's only one choice which is both misleading to Americans and also is not consistent with the choice Americans value). The public must drive the public health system in this country. Privately driven public health doesn't work -- we're living with the results. I can't emphasize strongly enough how critical I think it is that we come up with a serious, expensive national advertising and PR campaign NOW, through the summer, that counteracts the adversaries' talking points. It's so easy! No, it isn't true that a public option would limit choice. No, it isn't true it would cost more - we already speand twice as much as the next country behind us on health spending. No it won't mean health care is "rationed" -- what are we doing now, telling Americans they can't get care? But we'll spend more on prevention and less on massively interventional procedures in the last two weeks of life. No it doesn't kill innovation -- the latest research in medical innovation out of Wales (corneal transplants) and Australia (nanotechnology for cancer treatment) prove this. Real innovation will be rewarded with profit here, as it is elsewhere. Explain exactly where our health care spending goes now -- post the names of the CEOs in Big Health Care and the profits they've made this year. Compare costs with other high-GNP countries like Canada and Britain and ourselves. Run an ad showing a woman like the President's mother, ill, trying to spend as much time as she can on the phone with an insurance company that's arguing with her about saving her life. Run an ad showing a family that finds out that saving a loved one's life is going to cost them their savings and put them into bankruptcy. Run an ad showing a young person who has a hospital bill and has to decide not to return to school in order to pay it. Yes, jobs in health care will be lost. Buildings full of billing staff (maybe me, too -- I'm a medical coder) and legions of administrators, three out of four in every American hospital are there ONLY for third-party payer issues, will learn to do something else -- these may be good jobs, but most of them don't exist anywhere else because they're built on the unique excesses and redundancies of our health system. And not to be hyperbolic, but essentially these jobs are built on the traffic in human suffering. And at least these displaced workers will have health coverage while they re-train. Let's get one of our best ad agencies on this now. Right now. It's going to be a difficult summer. Thanks, Mr. Potter.