We're within a day of a resolution of the most hard-fought legislative battle since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A couple of days ago, I arrived at something of a Eureka moment on this issue, and, like any such moments, you wonder afterwards why it never dawned on you sooner.
Health care reform is simply an anti-discrimination bill. I had not looked at it like that, but think about it:
If you're on Medicare or Medicaid, or if you are eligible for VA benefits, you get health care without worrying about whether you have been sick in the past or if you might get cancelled if you get sick in the future. The same is true if you are covered by a group insurance plan at work. While your exposure to risk is greater in this case, group insurance is tightly regulated and generally you don't have to worry about pre-existing conditions and cancellation because your claims were too high.
Of course, you do have to worry about coverage running out, your company not being able to continue paying for health care, and rapidly rising premiums.
If you are not part of any of these government or employer systems, however, you are left to survive in the wild. And that's a fairly apt way of describing it. You face discrimination for pre-existing conditions that may keep you from getting benefits in the first place; and you face it in the event you get sick or injured even if you get coverage.
You are also subjected to premium rates that rise much faster than group plans, and you are almost certainly going to have less extensive coverage than those plans offer. This "life-in-the-wild" system we have set up has led to almost 50 million people without health insurance.
Health care reform, in the form of the bill in Congress right now, will end all this discrimination. It's as simple as that.
You are either for that or against it, there is no in-between. All members of Congress are part of the privileged group that has highly protected health care benefits. They don't have to worry about discrimination. So if they deny you and your family this protection, they are essentially saying to you, "I don't have to take any chances myself, but it's okay for you to take them."
Any member of Congress who votes against this bill should, in good conscience, drop out of the Federal Employee health program. Of course, don't hold your breath for that.
But that is the issue--plain and simple. There is nothing more to say about this. Let's see what our Congress really thinks.
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