By TIM MCDONALD
newsroom@newsandtribune.com
>>SOUTHERN INDIANA —
The debate over a health care package has raged for over one year and we are no further toward accomplishing anything but increased rancor and division. What can we agree upon?
Health care in this country is the finest in the world. Access to health care is shamefully inadequate in this country.
The health care industry has an agenda. Of course they do given the fact that the industry is comprised of companies who operate for profit. A company that operates for profit and is a public company has an obligation to return a profit for the shareholders.
That is the way a business works. It is the way of capitalism and I am a firm believer in capitalism. However, this notion of profiting from the potential ill health of the consumer base I think raises one of those ethical dilemmas.
Physicians, as a rite of passage, take the Hippocratic Oath. At least I hope they still do. In part that oath reads, “will apply dietic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice. I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. “
One of the arguments against a public health care option is that government bureaucrats will be making decisions about what level of health care will be extended to patients.
I have a news flash for you. Bureaucrats in the corporate world are already doing that now and their motives aren’t exactly pure. I do not question the integrity of the bureaucrats they are performing a job as outlined by their companies. I do question whether ethical behavior can be applied when dealing with a person’s health and physical well being.
President Lyndon Johnson in working toward his Great Society program said, “I want for every family what my mother wanted for me, what every mother wants for her child — the chance for an honest living, an honorable job, a decent future ... Do something we can be proud of.
“Help the weak and the meek. Lift them up. Help them train and give them an education where they can make their own way instead of having to live off the bounty of our generosity.”
To mention Johnson in this conversation could be seen by some a fuzzy-minded liberal thinking. I assure you that my fuzzy-minded thinking left with my long hair after college some 30-plus years ago.
However, the thing that is missing in “for-profit health” is compassion. Not on the part of the practitioners but on the part of the “for profit health care industry insurers.”
It is very difficult to have a for profit motive when it comes to the lives and health of individuals. Human life and health are sacrosanct in my estimation.
When small businesses in America want to do the right thing by way of their employees in providing health care they are forced to balance competitiveness and efficiencies against doing the right thing. The more insurance and benefits that are provided to an employee in terms of health care, the deeper the cuts into efficiencies and competitiveness in the marketplace; it’s a fact.
In the international marketplace, our companies are competing with companies that get benefit subsidies from their governments, artificially manipulate their currencies and mistreat their people. Other countries provide government health care, but at a high cost individually of an elevated tax rate.
It is hard to compete with that.
So how do we have an affordable system where all Americans can access it? The plain simple fact is that someone has to pay for it either through higher taxes, privately pooling costs among companies and organizations or legislatively making the system highly competitive.
No one wants higher taxes it would be safe to say. Pooling would be an option through industry programs, but it seems to me that in the true spirit of capitalism, opening up the competition for all insurance firms to compete in all 50 state markets would be the method to pursue.
The other fact of the matter is that in a nation such as ours, no one should lose their home and become bankrupt because of illness. I do not agree with pushing through a bill for the sake of getting a bill.
Republicans and Democrats alike need to realize that this is a serious issue and is shameful if important progress is not gained through cooperation.
To paraphrase LBJ, “do something we can be proud of.”
Tim McDonald can be reached at timothy.mcdonald@agsfaculty.indwes.edu
