Getting Better: on the fast track while fearing derailment

[Joanne98]

My infrequent postings are occurring due to a number of health issues I’ve been very busy getting resolved lately. None are immediately life threatening, so it’s nothing alarming, though without dealing with them now, they could multiply rapidly. Yet in the past three weeks, the amount of medical care I’ve received is nearly equivalent to the total care I’d previously received as an adult. Put another way, that’s 38 years of substandard, unaffordable healthcare that’s now being rivaled in less than a month.

I’m impressed. Since I became a Massachusetts resident last fall, I’m now able to get my health, dental and opthalmalgic needs addressed with very little out-of-pocket cost. The last time any employer I’ve had offered coverage roughly equivalent was in 1983. Most, since, have provided nothing.

One might surmise I made poor career choices, yet with babies afoot, there was little wriggle room for career corrections as the bills of ordinary living had to be paid. It was the changes in workplace compensation practices that drove the dearth of healthcare options, not choices I made. What, I’m supposed to be psychic?

I’d say the chief protagonists of my own and our nation’s healthcare affordability problems are the insurance companies and the corporate boardroom execs who’ve sold out their own labor to serve investors, nearly exclusively. You know, the same folks now lobbying feverishly to weaken the potential good our nation would enjoy if we joined the rest of the civilized world in getting healthier.

You’d think employers would see the wisdom of having employees functioning at optimal health, instead of the current practices which has them (many of them, at least) treating their workers as disposable commodities. Now we’re way past the point where our country - not just our government - has to address the health crisis or our nation will be much weaker as a result.

Just as with the banking crisis, it’s fair to ask why those most responsible for creating the mess are granted much room for shaping the remedial policies. It’s like asking Dr. House (Hugh Laurie) to provide direction on good bedside manner and overall politeness.

As Ezra Klein indicates, the ’strong public’ plan is the best option to pursue. But we’re only going to get that if much of the public is vociferous in contacting their elected reps to insist upon that. Which means, exercise your hands and vocal cords today. The health of you, your family, friends and neighbors depends on you following through. And I trust you’re more considerate and farsighted than Dr. House, some corporate execs and lobbyists and the mooks running the modern protection rackets.

By Kevin Hayden 9:40 am A Personal Note, Healthcare
http://www.reachm.com/amstreet/archives/2009/06/09/getting-better-on-the-fast-track-while-fearing-derailment/