Once again, we are being asked to choose between high-flying rhetoric and reality …

OneCitizen -- Remember this date: Saturday, June 6th, 2009. We will look back on that day as the moment when the fight for real health care reform began in your neighborhood -- perhaps even in your own living room. On June 6th, in thousands of homes across the country, we'll gather to launch our grassroots campaign for health care. We'll watch a special message from the President. We'll build the teams and draw up the plans for winning health care reform the same way we won the election: Building support one block, one neighbor, one conversation at a time. And we'll put those plans into action. These kickoffs are so crucial that President Obama will join confirmed hosts and attendees on a live conference call.

Obama does not have the answers to healthcare …

He looks and sound good as he reads his TelePrompTered speech; but the reality is that he mostly speaks in platitudes evoking the themes hope and change. He speaks of government ethics and transactional transparency which we have yet to see.

It appears to be all Hollywood-style smoke and mirrors pushing forward a radical agenda which will plunge the United States into chaos and ever-increasing debt; manifested by an enlarged and more bureaucratic government, higher taxes on those not already receiving state welfare and the significant loss of personal freedoms and liberty.

One need only look at what Congress and the Obama Administration have done to the economy; blaming everything on George Bush while expanding government spending commitments far beyond the total expenditures from Presidents Washington to Bush. No controls, little or no transparency and unbelievable nepotism, cronyism and pandering to the special interests.

A clear and present danger …

One need only consider that Obama’s healthcare plan does not include mandatory privacy legislation; expands a healthcare database to “big brother” proportions – able to track your health, finances and physical location – all the while reducing the amount of care you may received to that specified by a statistical “best practices” survey. It should be noted that these “best practices” surveys often result in the denial of any “extraordinary” life-saving treatment as the results of last-ditch efforts are likely to have poor statistical outcomes. The summary conclusion: rationing at the hands of handsomely-paid bureacrats and government contractors.

A not-so-shining example of government care …

One need only consider the medical availability and care afforded to those who have been asked to potentially sacrifice their lives for their country – the American veteran. Veterans who have received traumatic head injuries are likely to be lumped together with those who are appealing their hemorrhoid disability in a tangle of bureaucratic paperwork. This is a microcosm of managed paper and healthcare which should be perfected before the American public is subject to healthcare sanctions.

Truth be told, government healthcare is not about healthcare as it is increased bureaucratic control over the American public for political purposes and just another chance to raise taxes and limit freedoms and choice.

Something that would work …

Want to make healthcare coverage work? Let’s start with the basics. The insurance companies need to offer care to everyone, pre-existing condition or not, and spread the costs over a wider population base. To this end, healthcare providers would be required to post prices (no more tiered system to bilk the middle class and reward the illegal alien) and performance statistics. All subject to Federal Trade Commission regulations regarding false and misleading information.

• Doctors would be allowed more latitude to specify treatments and spend time with patients. To think that a doctor would review a patient’s history, electronic format or not, in five minutes and then suggest a course of treatment in the remaining ten minutes is ludicrous.
• We could continue subsidized clinics for the poor, but illegal aliens with major medical issues would be returned to their home country for treatment.
• Of course, emergency treatment would be given to anyone, anytime and the patient medically stabilized before decision-making about continuing care.
• As for the large university medical groups with their taxpayer subsidized facilities  and which compete against community physicians, perhaps we should restrict their specialized care to tertiary or quaternary care.
• And perhaps we should remove the incentive for insurance companies who profit from unwarranted denials and who obtain large performance bonuses at the expense of their patients.

President Obama’s assertion that this can all be paid for with the savings from computerizing medical records and creating a political big brother database are hogwash.

There are solutions to our medical crisis and they should not include input from large insurance company lobbyists with vested interests that run counter to the public’s welfare.

The same rah-rah political actions of the political activists might be great for politics, but the average person on the street knows little or nothing about the business of big medicine let alone how to fix a damaged system. To believe Obama, on the basis of past performance, is unwarranted and is likely to be dangerous to the health and welfare of American citizens.

Make the bastards prove their system, paperwork and all, works for the much smaller number of veterans before trying to implement a system which is surely doomed to failure. The key to implementing reforms is a phased approach – let them build  and successfully demonstrate one block at a time; starting with absolute privacy legislation which mandates absolute jail time for anyone who uses private medical information for commercial,  political or coercive purposes – with no exceptions.

Best advice, be well, be safe and take care of yourself and your family first.

-- steve

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OneCitizenSpeaking: Saying out loud what you may be thinking …