Health Care - US

I usually don't comment on politics on this blog, but in this case I will make an exception, especially as it relates to Health Care, President Obama and the opposition to health care reform in the USA.

I have been astounded by the level of so-called debate in the US over the proposed reforms to the US health care system and the vitriol of those opposing the public option. When debate descends to the level where President Obama is compared to Hitler, you have to wonder what these critics have been smokin'! Then you have people like Sarah Palin who have said that the Obama plan includes "death panels" of bureaucrats who would decide who lives or dies. Where did she get that? There is no such thing, and yet she makes headlines "by being economical with the truth" as Sir Humphrey would say.

After our annual conference in Fredericton, I took some time off and stayed for a couple of days at the Algonquin Hotel in St. Andrew's. It is a wonderful Gatsbyesque place. At night, on the front lawn, they have a fire pit going with a number of Muskoka chairs around the fire. We were sitting there one night and talking to some of the other guests. A few of them where from the USA, so we asked them about Health Care reform. One was from Massachusetts and the other one was from Connecticut. They were both against the "public option" as they felt that people should take individual responsibility and that they did not want to pay for people who do not take care of themselves. We continued the debate, though when they stated that the fair news in the US was Fox news, we knew where they were coming from. Mind you it was a civilized debate, not the overexcited, screaming & yelling that one has seen at US town hall meetings. Must have been the effect of being in Canada that calmed them.

Whatever your position is on the public option in the US, you should at least have a civilized discourse!

Back to the substance of the debate - tonight Barack Obama addresses Congress to try to get his message across. We will see if he will be successful. I have my doubts, given that they have let the anti-reform side frame the debate. Whatever comes out of Congress will be watered down and the winners will be the special interest groups (US insurance companies) and the losers will be those with out coverage or with inadequate coverage.

You have to wonder why a society as individually generous as the US (compare their charitable donations per capita to other countries) would be against the concept of putting in place a universally accessible health care system. It is not as if the US system produces better health outcomes or costs less than other "socialized" health care systems. Some of the opposition is based on not wanting a government health bureaucracy and the assumption that government can't run anything (the example they give is Hurricane Katrina). But is it better to have multiple private health insurance bureaucracies that result in a huge administrative overhead (some estimates are that this overhead is 30% of the health care bill in the US).

I could go on, but I think I will stop here - there is much on this topic in cyberspace...check it out.

Stay tuned and see what happens with this interesting debate.