Health Care Reform Proposal

The Junkfood Science blog has an entry regarding the Democrat's proposed healthcare plan, and if the 10,000 foot overview looks like spaghetti from this diagram then it's probably too complex to actually manage in any practical sense.

You might be able to find the blog article from either the link I embedded above or the blogroll on the right side of this page to find Junkfood Science and check it out.

It's so disheartening what a complex mess healthcare is. I enjoy the Junkfood Science blog; the posts are thought provoking and packed with good information. But I do think there's a bias towards strong opposition to the Obama health care proposal; which is fine. Everyone is entitled to an opinion on their own information site...you won't find much praise for Windows on this blog, for example (is there any? I don't think so...I know I have some good things for it though, just not good enough to have posted about it yet).

What I haven't really seen on the Junkfood Science site is a counterproposal or explanation as to why nothing proposed could work. Maybe she has posted the information and I've just missed it (like I said, I enjoy the site or I wouldn't waste my time there). There's something I learned relatively recently (meaning in the last couple years) and that is that if you have a complaint, fine, voice it. It's good in a team or group to have someone that can see the flaws in an idea and point them out. But try to have a counterproposal or solution as well. Just whining about the problems accomplishes nothing but makes you a poisonous element to any team or group.

Now that Obama is in the hot seat everyone is focusing on how we're hoping the healthcare reforms he'll start...and it's important to say it'll only start, not complete, since changes with government occur at a glacial pace...but that it'll probably fail. Every lobbyist and company with a stake in it is making sure they can yell, "I TOLD YOU SO!" when it doesn't work for everyone.

On the other hand, what is the alternative? I'm in my thirties and I don't recall any time aside from Hillary Clinton's efforts hearing about a concentrated effort to help American citizens get healthcare that didn't leave them thinking it would just be better to crawl into the corner and die rather than sort through the bureacracy to get better.

Republicans and insurance companies are saying that the government will stifle competition (yet I keep getting packages from UPS and FedEx...didn't we have a government-run group that delivered packages at one point? I think it was called the postal service...).

After three decades we're still in a mess and not the Democrats or the Republicans have done squat to help their constituents. The Democrats have been and are trying now to find a remedy. Politics as usual between our defacto two-party system is trying to hamper even that effort. Meanwhile we have 46 million Americans (as of 2007) without insurance and with the economy tanking the last couple years there's little doubt that number has risen significantly.

I'm begging. Stop bitching about the planned reform and find a solution. If you think you know better, then propose it. The last time the country actually set it's collective sight on a goal we managed to land an astronaut on the moon in surprisingly short time. Now why can't we get vaccines and medical care to our neighbors without putting them in debt for the rest of their lives?

Bueller?....Bueller?....