Thursday, December 17, 2009

December 16th , 2009

    
 
     Come on, Congress, pass a health care bill!  You can do it...or maybe you can't.
 
     It's painful to read the paper these pre-Christmas mornings and learn about Congress' struggles with health care.  We are, of course, the only major industrialized country that doesn't have some form of national health insurance and we have million of citizens with no insurance at all.  That doesn't seem to bother many in the Congress.  Republicans in the Senate, for instance, seem united in the belief that that's just fine.  If you can't afford any, you don't deserve any--it's not up to government to fix that.
 
     It's painful to read about efforts to trim the bill to attract this waverer or that: Lieberman might be for it if we drop the public option--the notion that the government itself might sell insurance;  Nelson might be for it if...and so on.
 
     Well, Congress, it doesn't have to be perfect.  If it turns out that section 7C is a bummer, you can amend it next year and make it better.  It's a law, not a concrete bunker.
 
     When I lived in England, years ago, you had a choice.  My then wife, who didn't like waiting in line, went private and got excellent care;  my daughter was born there.  A good friend, less well-paid, got very ill and went national health, was hospitalized, seen by distinguished specialists and finally diagnosed as, of all things, allergic to wheat.  The cure was obvious, of course;  he lived happily for years.
 
     What's the Emma Lazarus poem on the State of Liberty?  Something like, "Send us your hungry and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore..."  Well, we're still pretty good at offering better jobs, more hope.  But if you're sick and poor, stay where you are.  You'll probably get better care.  


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