Finally! Health Insurance Simplified!

Finally! Health Insurance Simplified!

Alec MacGillis, in todays Washington Post, explains the Health Care conundrum in 1,300 words of clarity that our politicians have failed to explain in 1,000 pages of confusion. His article Your Handy Health Care Cheat Sheet, is excellent, honest and sticks to the facts. There may be devils in the solution, but the problem is elementary, my dear citizen.

Health Care now devours 16% of our economy. Insurance rates spiral beyond the cost of a house. Soon premiums will explode beyond the budgets of even the wealthy; Affordable only by the super rich or as benefits to senior government employees, politicians and retired Presidents. It will be necessary to reverse laws that requiring hospital treatment to all who enter. There just won't be enough money.

But, you say, the United States has the best health care in The World! Absolutely true. We do have the best health care available. Available to World Leaders, Drug Dealers, Despots, Financial Barons, Dictators, US Politicians, Russian Oligarchs and the rest of the Mega Yacht Crowd who pay outrageous bills with minivans stuffed full of cash, government checks or premier insurance policies costing $3,000 - $5,000 per month. Our puny Blue Cross, Kaiser and Cigna policies won't even get us past their security details. What's in your wallet, citzen?

The World Health Organization, who studies these sorts of things, ranks the United States 37th in overall health care, just above Cuba. In overall health we rank 71st, earning us a seat at the back of the Third World Club. Compared to our peer countries, we live 5 years less and 5 times as many of our babies die before their 1st Birthday. 280% more of us are unable to earn a living because of repairable disabilities. Compared to the #1 ranked French, we pay almost twice as much of our GNP to treat 47% of our citizens as the French pay to treat 100% of theirs. Are the French smarter? Or is it something in the wine?

Something must be done.....about 25 years ago. Every day there is news of cures for disease and body repair; All the nasty things that shortened our ancestors lives is on the run. Within the next 50 years, the super rich will be living healthy, active and alert lives well past 100. Why? Because they can afford it. You and I, citizen, will be dropping dead from simple curable diseases or dieing from minor injuries before we hit 40. The last time people lived such meager lives was over a thousand years ago during the Dark Ages when the prescribed cure for everything, except heresy, was bleeding by leeches. You think I'm rattling off science fiction nonsense? Wait and see. We don't need no stinking Death Panels. We'll do it for ourselves.

Something must be done. I am not urging you to support, or not support, Obamacare. I am urging you to read Alec MacGillis's article. and consider the best and smartest course of action that makes sense to you. Keep in mind, citizen, we live in a Democracy, and our fellow passengers also have places they want to go and some mighty peculiar ideas about how to get there. But, holding the present course will soon bring us upon the Shoals of Status Quo and we will be smashed into 300 million pieces. Obamacare may be the best solution or just another bad idea. It may be the first wobbly leg in the right direction. Or not.

But, all this silliness about Death Panels, granny killing, Nazis, funny hats and missing Birth Certificates must go, replaced by serious dialog. The voices of those standing up, yelling passionate nonsense, must be joined by our own voices speaking passionate common sense. We don't have to agree on a solution today, but we must commit to a solution tomorrow.

Once we consent on a true course the trick will be to keep our politicians running the course we have set them. Simple folk, these politicians, can't help rowing in crazy circles without an occasional taste of the whip lash from us, their leaders. After all, they already have the really really good insurance...for free.

Think about it, citizen.