The Real Issue

Hear me out. The topic of this blog is NOT health care reform, but I need to lay some background.
I’ve been watching some of the town hall meetings going on lately regarding health care. Yes, I think we need to find a way to provide at least basic care other than an emergency room. No, I’m not obsessed with it. No, I don’t have any better ideas. Yes, I have reservations about what is happening now.
The only other thing I think I’ll say about the topic is that there is so much misinformation on both sides being stated, repeated, and believed to the point that it’s virtually impossible to know the truth of the matter. Some things I do know. We already ration care, government is already up to it’s ears in health care (and has been for many years), we already have “socialized” single-payer medicine (Medicare, Medicaid, V.A.), we have, hands down, the best pre-hospital (EMS) medicine in the world, we already have a dire shortage of qualified nurses, physicians, therapists, and other professionals in many areas of the nation, etc. Both sides are to blame, if one is laying blame, for the misinformation.
Might I suggest that one reason the public in general (including me) is leery of whatever is floating out there has more to do with trust and faith in government/politicians/congress/Washington than it has to do with the topic at hand. Government politicians have, over the years, played fast and loose with the faith and trust of the American people to the point that when now they say “Trust us on health care,” we naturally turn a nose to the wind to see what smells and how bad it is. I don’t care if it’s Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, the entire establishment, it seems, has lost the faith and trust of the American people to the extent that anything coming from them is immediately suspect.
And with good reason. They dance around on the meaning of the word “is”. They parry and dodge when it comes to lobbying, money, and influence-peddling. They earmark their way to re-election. And they are masters at obfuscation and not answering a simple question.
They throw billions of borrowed dollars into this black hole or that, trying to plug a self-made recession, and without any meaningful accountability or oversight. They self-righteously condemn out of control borrowing following years of their own largess and lack of control.
The fix for health care, whatever that might be, may have to wait until the American people can see some tangible progress and some real attempt on the part of the Washington establishment to be ethical, moral, and decent in their personal and professional lives, their behavior, and their dealings with us. Until then, yelling at one-another at town hall meetings may be the best we can do.