STANDING UP FOR HEALTH CARE

Today, I feel two extreme opposing emotions about the United States of America. For the first time in a long, long time, I'm proud of our government. And for the first time in a while, I'm severely disappointed at the stupidity and shortsightedness of our populace. Of course, I'm referring to the health care bill which, with some political strong-arming, just squeaked through Congress last night. Do I agree with all the methods used to get it though and its entire content? No. But I think it is what needed to be done, and will set us on a path where we can grow.

Before I begin, anyone who knows me understands that universal health care is something I've been a proponent of since the mid-1990s when Hillary Clinton attempted reform, and my belief has grown even greater since I graduated from college and have had to enter the health insurance market on my own. Now before anyone starts calling me a whiny liberal who understands nothing about cost and just wants to have everything handed to her, let me cut you off right there - I actually have excellent health insurance, which is provided to me FREE OF CHARGE by my employer. When I first interviewed for my job and inquired about employee benefits, I was floored when I was told our health and dental were paid 100% by the company, meaning I don't pay a cent out of my paycheck for medical or dental coverage. I didn't even realize that was an OPTION, and it was the reason that, after plowing through graduate school hoping I never got a cough or a cavity, I am finally able to afford to go for routine exams (and no, I don't work for the government, although their plan is even more stellar than my own). So if this is not my plight, why do I care so much about it? Allow me to explain.

THE UNITED STATES IS THE GREATEST COUNTY IN THE WORLD ...SO START ACTING LIKE IT

First, I, like many democrats, believe universal health care must exist in the United States, if not for any other reason, than principle. We are still, despite our recent decline, the greatest county in the world, yet we are the ONLY developed country which does NOT provide government health care options to its public. If you fall down a staircase in Italy, they will take you to the hospital, fix you up, and only upon leaving ask, "So, need any help with the bill?" In America, you can die bleeding from a head wound in the waiting room trying to fill out your credit card forms in triplicate. Of course, I'm being flippant, but the reality is every day Americans have to choose between buying groceries or buying their medication. Someone gets cancer and their families spend their savings, sell their home, lose everything - to get them treatment, or worse, have to forgo it because they can't pay for it. People can't afford insurance costs being lopped off their paychecks so they go without..and don't receive the annual monitoring which can catch problems early. In the richest country in the world, this is abhorrent. No one in the United States should have to worry about losing the shirt off their back because they happened to get sick. Whether this is currently true or not, health care should be a RIGHT, not a PRIVILEGE for the wealthy.

PRIVATE INSURANCE IS OUT OF CONTROL

Second, private insurance is expensive, VERY expensive. Ask anyone who has ever lost their job and tried to replace it; even part-time carryover policies meant to retain your insurance for a brief period while you find a new job, like COBRA, have prohibitive fees that the majority of anyone in the middle class and below cannot hope to afford. The only way most of us can pay for health insurance is when it is subsidized by our employers, which means most of us have NO CHOICE as to our health plans, which are dictated by the corporation we work for. These plans choose what they will pay for and what they will not pay for, and they decide which doctors we can and can not see. They decide which procedures are necessary and unnecessary. Doesn't this sound like the Big-Brother-esque system opponents of government health care try to scare people with? Well guess what - WE ALREADY HAVE THAT SYSTEM NOW, except currently, we have no alternative. In addition, we become slaves to our jobs because we are terrified of losing access to health care should we choose to pursue another career path. Does this sound like freedom to you?

Finally, insurance companies have the right to deny you coverage, for almost any reason, even though you're PAYING for it. This is akin to going to the grocery store and trying to bury groceries, but when you go to pay, the cashier says, "I'm sorry, you can't buy groceries here. You've got a pre-existing condition where you tend to slip on grocery store floors and fall." So you go to the next grocery store, and they say the same thing. You go to every grocery store, and none of them will give you food which you need to survive and are willing to pay for because there is a slight risk you may fall and potentially file a claim for money because you slipped on their floor. It's a silly analogy, but it's accurate in that insurance companies are so obsessed with the bottom line that even if you sign up when healthy should you then become sick, which is the point of having the insurance in the first place! There has even been recent revelations of insurance companies making up reasons, or not even bothering making up reasons, to drop customers who receive an HIV positive diagnosis. Government insurance, since it is funded with public money, will not be allowed to deny anyone coverage for their state of health.

MEDICARE/MEDICAID LEAVE OUT THE MAJORITY

Some critics argue that we have government options already - Medicare and Medicaid - which are in place to take care of those who have difficulty accessing health care. Well, these two options, despite their problematic parts, have helped millions of people but they leave out millions more. They were basically designed to help the elderly cope with prescription drug coasts and assist poverty-level families in getting basic check-ups for young kids. They do not have the design and scope to provide coverage to the majority of middle America who earn too much to qualify for poverty assistance and not enough to opt in to traditional insurance. Simply enlarging these programs also only patches leaks in the system by throwing money out the window while ignoring the larger problem - health care is not affordable enough to adequately care for the majority of Americans and is only getting worse. The entire system needs to be reevaluated if we want any long term success.

OUR COUNTRY CAN'T AFFORD NOT TO UNIVERSALIZE HEALTH CARE

That said, the biggest problem most people have with our government providing health care is affordability. Who's going to pay for such a large program? We're healthy, why should we shoulder the burden of someone else? These are legitimate concerns; yes, a universal health care plan is expensive, and yes, it will be funded by tax dollars which you and I pay for. HOWEVER, the flip side to this is WE ALREADY PAY FOR IT NOW. Although a lack of insurance can deny people access to routine care, hospitals can't refuse to treat people who come into their emergency rooms, even if they have no means of paying for the hospital's services. Those bills are then swallowed by both the hospital and the government, which are both funded by our tax dollars. If these uninsured people had the opportunity to buy into an affordable government insurance option, they would be taking less of our money because they would be contributing some of their own. In addition, if these people had access to routine health exams which are cheaper than expensive emergency care, many of their problems could be prevented or treated earlier, and save us from paying for more costly procedures later on. Not only would this save our budget billions a year, but it would have the added benefit of cutting down overcrowding and waiting times in emergency rooms, as only people with actual emergencies would be there.

Also, by allowing the government to centralize the system in which hospitals keep track of medical files and records, we would save even more tax dollars. Many of these records are not even currently computerized! Allowing doctors to have up-to-date and accurate access to our medical histories would not only give us all better care, but would cut administrative costs and money wasted on unnecessary tests or procedures which doctors currently prescribe patients because they do not have access to their full records. This might sound like just a drop in the bucket, but financial experts have calculated that the federal government currently wastes tens of billions of dollars on these administrative discrepancies each year. In fact, many analysts believe that in the long term, a universal health care plan would PAY FOR ITSELF with the money we would save from doing away with all of the practices mentioned above. Eventually the new system would be a much cheaper institution to run than what we currently have, which we cannot afford to maintain. To me, that sounds like a pretty damn good investment for my tax dollars, which I'm going to lose whether we keep the old system or not.

BIG BIRD AND COOKIE MONSTER AREN'T SOCIALISM

Finally, instituting this system has the potential to SAVE US ALL MONEY on our health insurance, because it sets up the government as a competitor to the private insurance companies, hopefully drive everyone's costs down. Since the current system generally has corporations at the heart of the insurance purchasing and not the individual person, this will be the first time companies will be forced to court YOU, the beneficiary, as the customer, as you can choose the government's plan over your employer's plan if you so prefer. Let me be clear: a government option is just that, an option. No one is forcing you to buy into the government's plan; you can keep your Tufts or Blue Cross or Pilgrim plan if you want to, but if they want to keep your patronage they are, for the first time, going to have to cut you a deal.

And before you say this is Communism, please let me remind you that Communism is an economic system in which citizens cannot own private property. It has nothing to do with social institutions, or the government funding a public alternative to a private commodity. If you are going to use the correct term and call this a form of Socialism, then it is...slightly. But social equality does not equate a Socialist society. A perfect example is PBS and NPR - the public broadcasting and national public radio stations. They compete for viewers with NBC, ABC, CBS and FOX, but are funded by the government and are kept affordable so low budget programing can have equal access to a national media forum. So does that make Big Bird and our other friends at Sesame Street Socialists? No, it doesn't. Social Security, FDIC, unemployment benefits, anti-trust laws and other social programs are also slightly Socialist, but I don't see people lining up to protest those. People called FDR a Communist and claimed he'd bankrupt the county for instituting social reforms that helped pull our nation our of the Great Depression, but we did not become a Bolshevik nation as a result and his reforms are now institutions we take for granted. Equal opportunity is one of the core foundations of our democracy, and its not in and of itself a slippery slope to Socialism.

SOMETIMES IT TAKES A STRONG ARM TO GET THINGS DONE

Now, I understand that many people like the idea of instituting universal health care but don't like the current plan which passed through Congress or the tactics used to get it there. To you, please count me as a sympathizer. I am not 100% happy with the current plan, and I don't think any lawmaker in Washington is either. The problem is it will never be perfect, and no one is ever going to agree on it completely. However, almost any Congressman since the 1970s could tell you that the current system is broken. Efforts to fix it many times since then have wasted away in Congress as no one can agree on a plan. The same arguments - affordability, Socialism, competition, etc, have been made again and again and again and again to no avail. Many lawmakers, including the late Ted Kennedy, have lamented opportunities to put a new structure in place, even if it was something they didn't completely agree with, as a base which they could shape and mold as time passed. Now, however, we have reached a breaking point with our current health care system; our efforts to modify and patch it together over the years have created a mess that can no longer sustain itself. Obama and the Democrats saw an opportunity to finally put that new base structure in place, and for once, an administration and a party had the courage to actually follow that plan through.

Watching this, I, for the first time, had respect for President Obama. If anyone followed me during the campaign, you would know I have never been his biggest fan. But here is a guy who basically just committed political suicide to do what he thought was right and best for the nation. Now that takes guts. With this in place, the Republicans, moderates, and everyone else can now work on making the new structure the best system they can...if they can stop pointing fingers long enough to do it. It's hard for me to sympathize watching Republican Congressmen get red in the face because they have lost a battle, when those same people were calling Democrats un-American when they dared protest President Bush's unchecked spending of billions of taxpayer dollars in Iraq searching for weapons which only existed in the twisted mind of Dick Cheney. Why was it okay for the White House to take over then? Because Iraq was a threat? Well I'm more scared of getting cancer than getting blown up by a terrorist. How about that for a reality check?

Plus, under all the mudslinging, some very positive parts of this bill have gone unnoticed. For starters, kids can now remain under their parents' insurance plans until they are 26, when before they expired at 23, which is usually around when a young adult graduates from college. Considering my first few jobs didn't pay me enough to allow me to afford health insurance, even with a graduate degree from an Ivy League school, this should be a huge benefit to recent college graduates trying to get a start in a bad job market and saddled with student loans. Also, the bill makes it illegal for private insurers to deny coverage to customers based on preexisting conditions, which benefits everyone. Finally, it patches many of the holes which exist in the Medicare and Medicaid programs, which many on both sides of the aisle agreed needed fixing.

Finally, for the American public, I understand everyone's concerns, and I hope everyone keeps talking and thinking about this issue, because this is new territory for our nation and this is as system which is going to need constant tweaking until we figure it all out. But please don't listen to every pundit or fall for every scare tactic, and investigate everything yourself. Agree or disagree with me for your own reasons, not because CNN or Fox News told you so. And don't go screaming "COMMUNISM!" and demanding Obama's birth certificate...come on. You're wasting Hawaii's time and our tax dollars every time you make them mail you a copy. And for those of you who don't feel you should have to pay for somebody else's problem....well, the status quo is all well and good until you're the one who's sick. If it was your kid in the hospital bed...wouldn't you want the freedom to do whatever you could to make it better? I'd hope that's something we all can agree on.