Thursday, June 18, 2009

Why we won't be seeing healthcare reform any time soon

Kennedy Helthcare Bill


Senator Edward Kennedy came up with a healthcare plan just recently. Two comittees have been working on the 600 page bill to fine tune the details. It's hoped to be bipartisan with both sides of the isle adding their ideas. The fly in the ointment so to speak is that the republicans (The No Party as I call them) has brought up 388 amendments to the bill. Each of those amendments must be debated and voted on. As slow as congress is this could well take years to hash out. The problem is that we don't have years to fix this problem. For those of you out there who are too greedy of selfish to consider insurance for the poor or uninsured and refuse to pay for someone else, stop to consider that you are already paying for them when they must head to the emergency room because they have no other choice. And like it or not taxes will have to be raised even if nothing is done because more people are losing their jobs along with their healthcare. Then there's the medicare issue. It won't be long before the money going into that system will fall as the population ages leaving a major shortfall.
As for whether I'm for being a part of a public or private plan frankly I really don't give a damn as long as I have decent coverage. Most companies go with the cheapest insurer anyway. If one insurance company becomes to expensive the bean counters always convinces the CEO to switch insurers and plans to save a buck.
So what happens now. If the republicans win and nothing is done (they just love things as they are, call them the stagnant quo) more will be without insurance causing those with insurance to pay more, a lot more. Those without insurance will be a drain on the state and federal governments. We're already seeing that now with some states that are in big trouble economically. California and Michigan come to mind immediately.
Someone said that it will take a decade to fix the mess Bush left us. I'm now starting to believe that. The No Party continues to say that this is Obama's fault. No dummies this was Bush's fault and will continue to be Bush's fault until the problem is solved.

3 comments:

Randal Graves said...

As each day passes on planet earth, I can't help but recall the words of Kent Brockman: "I said it before and I'll say it again: democracy simply doesn't work."

Tom Harper said...

It's like you said in your post, this health care crisis is expensive for everybody, including the greedy. Greed is bad enough even when it pays off; but someday the rightwing me-firsters need to grasp the fact that if they'll just suck it up and allow other people to get government-financed health insurance, they themselves will benefit along with everybody else.

S.W. anderson said...

"As for whether I'm for being a part of a public or private plan frankly I really don't give a damn as long as I have decent coverage."

The trick is to get "decent coverage" at an affordable price. That's where industry has utterly failed 47 million people. (I think it's more like 50 million because of the recession.) Having a public-sector plan in play offers hope of making decent coverage affordable for many of today's health insurance have nots.