Health Care Solutions- What Americans Want
Ken Grundland, one of my fellow principal contributors over at Bring it On!, has this post I wanted to share with you today
While the Republican controlled Congress spends their days on our dime bantering about issues of vital importance like gay marriage, flag burning, and killing the death tax, average Americans all over the country are weighing in on an issue that really matters to them, to us all. And that issue is health care. Health care is not an issue with theological implications (well, maybe for a few), so the debate about what kind of health care system we want does not fall apart along religious arguments. Instead, the divide in the health care debate is about money. Who pays and who profits? And it is also about quality and availability of health care. But mostly, it’s about money.
Health care costs have been growing at a rate that far outpaces inflation for several years now. Yet in communities across the nation, hospitals are closing or reducing services. A shortage of qualified nurses and doctors increases the time it takes to see a medical professional. Premiums for coverage, doctor visits, medicines, and diagnostics are going up. These factors affect health care consumers on a daily basis. That’s you and me. Mom and Grandpa. The neighbor lady and the kid who cuts the lawn. Everyone.
And yet on the other side of the coin, pharmaceutical companies are getting richer and richer while plying their designer drugs on a public all too conditioned to expect a little pill for a quick fix to what ails them. Pharmacists are refusing to fill legally prescribed medicines because of ‘moral issues.’ Accountants are deciding what a patient ‘really needs’ instead of letting doctors do their jobs. And politicians are trying to play God by sticking their noses in issues they have no sense being involved in, like the right to die or the course of medical research.
Read the rest of this post »
While the Republican controlled Congress spends their days on our dime bantering about issues of vital importance like gay marriage, flag burning, and killing the death tax, average Americans all over the country are weighing in on an issue that really matters to them, to us all. And that issue is health care. Health care is not an issue with theological implications (well, maybe for a few), so the debate about what kind of health care system we want does not fall apart along religious arguments. Instead, the divide in the health care debate is about money. Who pays and who profits? And it is also about quality and availability of health care. But mostly, it’s about money.
Health care costs have been growing at a rate that far outpaces inflation for several years now. Yet in communities across the nation, hospitals are closing or reducing services. A shortage of qualified nurses and doctors increases the time it takes to see a medical professional. Premiums for coverage, doctor visits, medicines, and diagnostics are going up. These factors affect health care consumers on a daily basis. That’s you and me. Mom and Grandpa. The neighbor lady and the kid who cuts the lawn. Everyone.
And yet on the other side of the coin, pharmaceutical companies are getting richer and richer while plying their designer drugs on a public all too conditioned to expect a little pill for a quick fix to what ails them. Pharmacists are refusing to fill legally prescribed medicines because of ‘moral issues.’ Accountants are deciding what a patient ‘really needs’ instead of letting doctors do their jobs. And politicians are trying to play God by sticking their noses in issues they have no sense being involved in, like the right to die or the course of medical research.
Read the rest of this post »
posted by p_jordan_sr at 6/11/2006 06:05:00 AM
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