More Healthcare Ranting

I just heard Mitt Romney giving his “victory" speech in Michigan after the primary there. He was telling the crowd all they voted for him. "You voted for me because you want everyone to be covered by health insurance.” I am paraphrasing but really? Republicans want me to have healthcare? Sure they have controlled Congress for 12 of the last 14 years, and the White House for 7 of those 14, but now Republican Romney, with Reagan hair wants me to have health insurance. OK, how?

So I cruised over to his campaign website and looked up his position on healthcare and how he was going to get it out to people who don’t have it. It wasn’t too darn informative, but I did find out that he wants you to tell your school to have better food so kids won’t get fat and we can deal with obesity and diabetes.

The Republic Party paying lip service to health care reform is just that. Romney wants to require that everyone buy insurance, or they will fine you. They will have “market reforms”, which will look a lot like their Social Security Reform. Suddenly all our health care money is going to corporations, who will ensure a snappy business model built on efficiency, maximizing resources and therefore profit, for themselves. What happens if the business isn’t meeting their quarterly projections and they haven’t meet them in a couple of years and they are going bankrupt. What happens then and who pays. Does anyone remember the Savings & Loan shit of the 80's. Neil Bush does.

I agree that we need to include everyone in the risk pool, therefore covering everyone and pooling the risk and responsibility for all of our care. The best mechanism we have for that is the US Government. They know everyone already. The myth is that government is less efficient than business. It isn’t; it just has to serve everyone (sometime it doesn't feel like service.) Business gets to throw out or choose not to serve some people or target certain markets. It is apples and oranges. Each has its place.

We already do it, you know; Medicare=socialized healthcare, Veteran Administration=socialized healthcare, Medicaide=socialized healthcare, Indian Health Service=socialized healthcare, I get a tetnus shot and flu shot from the public health nurse=socialized healthcare. I bet there are alot of republican voters in those systems.

People go off on the evils of socialized healthcare limiting access and rationing care. The subtext being that Hillary will smother you in the hospital as you recover from butt crack surgery. You will die young and the evil commies sell your organs to the Chinese. But rationing is already happening. It is being done by corporations and I have no recourse, except, of course a trial lawyer after the fact. Maybe we should put one in the White House instead. Go John.