Some Thoughts On Health Care

I must admit that I'm frustrated by the nature of the health care debate. I have some extremely strong feelings about what should be done, but the debate slants violently toward minutiae and arguments over how each party should label the public option.

I rather enjoyed Alan Grayson on the floor of the house:




Yet, the problem with his comments were they were simply taken as partisan.

The debate has lapsed into partisan squabbling when more care should be taken at how the debate is framed. I would start any health care debate with this question:

Should people have a right to health care if they are suffering from an illness or injury?

In the law under certain circumstances, people are given the right to legal representation because our belief structure as a society requires it. Do we think that people should have the right to health care? Any discussion should begin at that point. The reason that this should be the starting point is that if the answer is "Yes" then you have to figure out how to make it happen. It is certainly ironic that as a society we feel it is imperative to provide health care to the very individuals whose actions have landed them in jail and separated themselves from free society, yet those of us who are free are given no such protection. My gut tells me that most people are decent and would not deny health care to those in need.

Everyday I see a parade of individuals brought to financial ruin by our "health care system." I see the pain and despair. I ask them to look at their bankruptcy attorney and I ask them,
"Do you know what I am?"

Inevitably the answer is "No."

I tell them, "I'm the national health care plan."

When a bankruptcy attorney is your national health care plan, something is seriously wrong with a system that should be providing necessary care to those in need.