The topic has stirred a lot of opinions, but I really like your comparison of the public option to the post office, a much needed perspective in a debate fraught with hyperbole. If someone as respected and influential as your father can find himself in this position, it could happen to any of us.

My condolences to you and your family.

I hope other readers will see past the emotional side-taking in the comments and remember the original topic and situation outlined in the article.

I know where my dad would stand on this issue. He had stomach cancer in 83 and could never get insurance again. The idea of anyone defending the system we have is simply beyond me.

Someone mentioned individual tragedies should should not be used to create a “vast immortal government” … I dont think creating a public option does any thing like that. Tragedies are sometimes the only thing that will motivate change.

The public option would be like the post office…its there because not everyone can afford Fed Ex. Same goes for health care. We need to create a public option, but that does not mean you wont have private options. A public option will help lower the cost of health care for all. Just like having the post office around gives Fed Ex and UPS competition.

Thanks
Greg Punchatz

It’s bad enough facing a major health problem without having to worry about whether you’ll be able to afford the treatment. Here in the UK, no matter how poor or well off you are you know that if you get cancer, a brain tumour, or any other health problem you can focus on getting better and that you will be given the best treatment our country has to offer for free. I’m glad to pay my taxes to enable everyone in our country to have that reassurance in their time of need.

The caller said that the preventative health care part of the plan would end up costing us too much money because those people who the plan would be helping would keep getting sick again and again – costing us more money each time we have to save them. As they get older they would get worse each time they get sick. The older they are able to get the sicker they will get and the more money they will cost us. It would be better for all of us if we don’t waste money in trying to treat those people.

The caller avoided answering some of the host’s questions. Does knowing that someone said something like that make you feel good? After thinking about it for a bit I realized that the President failed in the way that the liberals have been failing over the last twenty five to thirty years. They have let the conservatives distort any issue they oppose into discussions that appeal to the dominant American values – Greed and Hate. “Why should the government waste ‘your’ money on ‘those’ people?” “Why should the government give your hard earned dollars to people who believe something that you know in your heart is against your beliefs?” The real message in these questions is “Why should you use your money to help someone you hate?”

I have to agree with some of what onparkstreet said about a potential disaster. Only, I see the healthcare problem as being only a part of the impending disaster.

Our whole system – economic, social and political – has become a top-heavy house-of-cards. As I see it that last big collapse was not the disaster but another symptom of the growing problem.

The so called experts keep saying what they’ve said again and again. “The problem is that the consumer is not spending enough.” Never mind that most in the ranks of the consumers don’t have enough money to meet all their needs and are already sinking in debit. If they go out and spend more money profits will be up and we can pick up again where we left off. In other words. If people spend more we can add another, more stable, layer to “our country’s great success.” Another layer for an unstable house-of-cards. When the whole thing collapses this past year will seem like it was part of the good times.

Well. I’ll get off the soapbox now.

Anyway, just because the status quo is bad, doesn’t mean that the proposed bill is the answer.

I am a physician and I have mild form of multiple sclerosis. I deal with the system quite a bit, and I assure you, as someone who works in a non-profit teaching hospital, I am not paid by any big medicine. I’d make a lot more out in private practice. When I was a faculty member at a teaching hospital in Boston, I remember being promised by proponents of the Massachussetts health care bill that the costs would go down; that it wouldn’t break the bank fiscally. The opposite has happened, as some of us feared. Costs are up, not down.

I’ve been in this game for a while and almost all the proposed healthcare legislation has cost far more than originally ‘gamed out.’ And, almost all of the ‘big ideas’ in medicine out of the white paper policy crowd haven’t worked out as they were meant to, at least in my experience. I’ve seen it again and again, with Masscare, capitation in the 90s, etc. Why should I believe this time will be different? The staffers who wrote this bill likely don’t even know the long term consequences of the various parts of the bill; they just put together a bunch of stuff to satisfy different interest groups. This bill, all 1,990-pages of it, is a pastiche of this and that and no one really knows what the unintended consequences will be. It is an experiment with 1/6th of the economy. And, finally, the federalization of health care with the formation of a Health Choices Commissioner takes the decision making further away from the people. And if the Health Choices Commissioner gets it wrong? What then?

It’s not about R vs. L. Think carefully about this! This is a huge structural change to our economy and we have no real idea what it will do. This is dangerous territory. Read it, if you can, it’s online and while hard to read, but subsection E isn’t. The Health Choices Commissioner is essentially the Department of Homeland Healthcare, if you’ll pardon the little joke.

For the first time in my adult life, I am really worried. This is a potential disaster in the making.

:) Take care, and lovely blog!