Curmudgeon's Corner
cur-mud-geon: anyone who hates hypocrisy and pretense and has the temerity to say so; anyone with the habit of pointing out unpleasant facts in an engaging and humorous manner
From the Ashes?
The healthcare reform approach often referred to as ObamaCare appears to be imploding as the result of the American people making their thoughts known during the August recess. The most liberal politicians are seeing their dreams of universal single payer health care dashed once again. The last time was when HillaryCare met an early demise as the American people began to understand just what that would mean to them and to their children and grandchildren.
From the ashes of defeat, there is a golden opportunity to re-make our health care system without first wrecking it.
We have problems in our health care system; most all of us know that. There are obviously those without health insurance. That can be solved except for those of whom do not want health insurance. All approaches to "universal" insurance end up with a group that simply refuse to become enrolled. We need to change the manner in which we get our care. That starts with tort reform so the attorneys are not taking tens and hundreds of millions of dollars off the health care table. We need to reform the manner in which doctors practice and that can be done by paying for outcomes and not for the number of procedures.
We don't need to "blow up" the idea of employer-sponsored health care, but we do need to provide similar tax advantages for those individuals who buy their own health plans.
There is now the opportunity for Republicans and Democrats to come together on behalf us and not just their party. If we miss this chance, we may have to wait a long, long time for another opportunity; and, that could well be too late to correct the issues that need be corrected.
President Obama can set this all in motion by becoming the true leader he has been trying to convince us he is. He can press the "restart" button that he used in Russia, and he can do away with the Democrat partisanship we've been subjected to so far in his first eight months. There are some good ideas on both sides so long as the extreme ideologues of each party are marginalized in favor of a more centrist solution that directly involves the consumer of health care services.
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The Curmudgeon Blog today is titled "One Term or Two Terms?".
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