Monday, August 24, 2009

Keeping our eyes on the ball

I heard someone (I think it was a Republican officeholder) say that we all agree that we want everyone to have health insurance.

Isn't what we REALLY want (or ought to want) if for everyone to have health care?

3 comments:

Leanderthal, Lighthouse Keeper said...

There's a danger in saying that we want everyone to have health care, if implies government run health care.

That's how GOPhers twist the story.

What the Dem reform is trying to do, if I understand it at all, is to ensure that everyone has access to affordable health care, the model being Medicare which we seniors pay for, and which cannot be taken away for preexisting conditions or because of high risk to the insurer.

The opponents want the public to believe that reform would mean that government would provide the actual health care. That's a lie.

Leanderthal, Lighthouse Keeper said...

Michael Steele twists it even more, when he said that government should not be allowed to dictate end of life care.

The reform bill, again if I understand it at all, could include paying doctors for providing end of care advice.

Getting that advice, when one is dying, or getting it in advance is a most prudent thing to do.

This week I am meeting with my attorney to upgrade my will, put in place a Living Will, and especially important in MA, a health care proxy, plus a durable power of attorney. It will name my executor, and provide him with my POA.

So far as I know I am not in a terminal state. My doc says I'm good for my age, 72, even though I have chronic back pain.

This kind of advice is for the benefit of the family, and the peace of mind of the patient.

The GOPhers want the public to believe that it gives the government power over who lives and who dies.

It's the sickest of lies.

I want Obama to say just that, "It's the sickest of lies". He needs to call out the liars,and name names. There is no genuine bipartisanship here, and Obama is naive to keep hoping for it.

I think the public would admire him and rally around him for doing just that.

There's a limit to the audacity of hope. It's when it becomes the naivete' of appeasement.

The Old New Englander said...

I suggest that you write to the White House and tell the President exactly that.

You are surely right that the GOPhers have decided that truth cannot get in the way of what they see as political advantage. The good part of this is that if progressives enact health care reform it will further weaken the right--and in the long range encourage more responsible conservatism.