Posts Tagged ‘health care reform’

April 27, 2010

AAHC’s Support of Health Reform

The AAHC congratulates Congress and the Administration on the passage of the new health reform legislation.  AAHC’s support for the measure was mentioned by Dr. Howard Koh, Assistant Secretary for Health at HHS, at the beginning of his commentary before AAHC’s International Forum in Washington on Monday, March 22nd.  Dr. Koh quoted briefly from the letter of support sent by Dr. Wartman before launching into his remarks:  While the plan proposed is an imperfect one, we feel that, based on the principles of social justice, passage of improved health coverage deserves our support. A just society cannot continue to have large segments of its population forced to make decisions between their health and their financial well-being. Because academic health centers have a historic commitment to providing access to care for the under served, the AAHC believes it is unacceptable that tens of millions of Americans lack adequate health insurance.  We will also continue our efforts to emphasize the urgent need to address very substantive health workforce issues, as health workforce reform is essential to effective health care delivery.

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September 30, 2009

Baucus Tells America: No Public Option, Horatio Alger is Role Model

Long live Horatio Alger, the Congress said yesterday.  The Senate Finance Committee, by its vote against a public option in health reform legislation,  told the American people  that  if you can’t be Horatio Alger–if you can’t suffer and persevere and make it on your own when it comes to health care– tough luck.  Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus lives too much on the frontier.  He  obviously still believes in the Horatio Alger myth–that is,  that America can be sustained by  rugged individuals who, like the boys glorified by the 19th century dime-store novelist  Horatio Alger,  can go from rags to riches on their own solely by hard work and clean living. 

Without a public option, Baucus is saying that if you get sick, don’t have a job, lost your job, can’t pay your bills, get insurance coverage, figure out the insurance system, there must be something  wrong with you.  You’re not living right. You didn’t follow the Alger rules. The government will not help you.

 Shame on Senator Max Baucus. Shame on the Finance Committee. Shame on President Obama for letting the Congress act on its own on health care.  Shame on  America for not protesting in favor of a public option.

 This is the 21st Century.  Horatio Alger is not the role model we should be admiring. Did Horatio get an inherited form of cancer? Did Horatio lose his job because thieves on Wall Street were “too big to fail?”  There are forces at work beyond the control of any one person.  No one can make it on his  own these days—and no one should be blamed for that.

Horatio Alger  can no more protect his health in the modern world than he can provide for his own defense with a musket in the corner of his room in the boarding house!

 The government should protect its people with a health care program just as Horatio Alger –in the end– was saved from poverty with the help of a wealthy benefactor.

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Posted in American culture, Health Reform, News, Policy | 1 Comment »

August 11, 2009

Why so touchy about health care reform?

Why has the idea of health care reform provoked so much emotion?  Why hasn’t there been a more reasoned debate over the important issues?  I think part of the answer is two-fold:

  • Economics – Health care represents more than one-sixth of our economy and about one in ten jobs, and the health sector is expected to continue to grow.  With so much money and income at stake, it is obvious that there is a lot to lose (and win) with any substantive changes in the health system.   So change raises issues and concerns at the level of the pocket book.
  • Fear and Misunderstanding – Everyone is ultimately vulnerable to ill health and, on some level, harbors some fear of the unknown in terms of a future illness or health need.  This in and of itself can foster reluctance to take a chance on changing the current  system:  better the devil that you know than the devil you don’t.  In addition, health care delivery is so complex that it is difficult to get beyond rather simplistic paradigms when discussing meaningful health care reform.  This makes it hard sometimes to really get at the issues.  And, finally, when these fears and misunderstandings are coupled with rational (or irrational) concerns about the role of government, there may be little in the way of meaningful discourse.

What we need to do is take a deep breath and try to go back to basics.  What are the principles that should guide our efforts in health care reform?  How do these principles relate to the strengths and weaknesses of our current health system?  And, perhaps lost in the current debate, what are our national aspirations for the health care of our citizens?  Perhaps a back to basics approach can change the tenor and nature of the current health care reform dialogue.

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