About Health Care Reform

According to Eric J. Toder, a tax economist at the Urban Institute, if health care reform is worth doing, more people should be willing to pay for it. Good point, but therein lies the problem with getting a reasonable health care reform bill through Congress. More people are not willing to pay for health care reform. Somehow or other someone else should pay for it , and that someone else is reluctant to pay for it. Stalemate! Fodder for Republican obstructionists! The makings of botched up health care reform!

It comes as no surprise! We wring our hands over injustices but we send a clear message that “ what’s mine is mine and don’t you dare try to take it away from me to fix an injustice” . If we are not willing to pay to fix an injustice, why the hell do we elect people to fix that injustice? They are politicians not magicians.

I keep thinking back to 1986 when the rage in Congress was to come up with catastrophic medical insurance. All went well until someone told retirees their Medicare premiums would go up. No way they said. The end of catastrophic medical insurance. The beginning of inflationary health care costs. As for the retirees, they saw Medicare premiums rise anyway. By the way, most of the objections came from those who had access to catastrophic medical insurance. They cast a tear for those who didn’t and went on with their lives.

Health care reform is a tinder box. Republicans say it will be Obama’s Waterloo. That’s about all they can contribute to the debate --- they have no solutions. Can Obama pull it off. I hope so and I do know it will involve sacrifice on my part although I have perfectly good health care coverage. My good coverage , however is vulnerable to rampaging health care costs. Health care reform is a must and we must be willing to pay for it.