HealthCare: The Sniff Test

I have always tried to temper my natural curiosity with the principle, 'if it smells bad avoid it'. I think this is a winning principle. OK, there are things that smell horrible yet actually are good, like some kinds of sushi, but they are the minority. Using foul-smells as a clue to inherent rottenness is most often the correct plan.

The current state of health care in this country does not pass the sniff test. It smells off, in Oh So Many Ways. But, like sushi, there are some bits of it that are really good. It's just those good bits are immersed in a larger vat of past-prime detritus.

For example, it's very true that you can get the most advanced treatments and get them relatively quickly, right here in the US. But it's also true that not everyone has access to this quality care, and those that do can be charged outrageous sums for the privilege. They can also be denied coverage or dropped completely. That Stinks!

If you have a job with health insurance, it's true the cost is usually manageable. But if you lose that job, the cost of carrying that coverage on your own can be overwhelming. If you get another job, you will likely change insurance providers and need to find a different doctor. If you've had a recent history of health problems (i.e., 'pre-existing conditions') you may not get coverage at all. That Stinks!

If you are really, really poor in this country you can line up at the nearest publicly-subsidized hospital emergency room and get 'free' care. Of course, such facilities are thin on the ground and getting scarcer. If you are wealthy or have an employer who provides quality coverage, you can get service at many places. If you are in the middle, you have to take whatever you can get, which might not be enough when you need it the most. That Stinks!

All of which is to say, healthcare as it currently exists in America is a very mixed bag of sushi.

If you are wealthy, or continuously employed, poor enough to qualify for what public assistance now exists, have survived long enough to receive Medicare (a publicly subsidized, single-payor system), or are just one of those healthy, never-get-sick people, you may not 'smell' a problem. That makes you the prime audience for the opponents of health care reform. Because you haven't had to swallow bad medicine yet, they can spin you a tale of socialism and inefficiency, a tale of limited options and choice. That Stinks!

However, most of us are neither wealthy enough nor poor enough to always have quality health insurance coverage. In times of recession, we may not have jobs to provide it, and paying for coverage ourselves may be too much a burden. Or impossible, even. We may have pre-existing conditions or chronic problems that may lead to denied coverage. Some of us may watch helplessly as loved ones suffer and die from conditions that aren't treated for lack of health insurance. It might even happen to us. That Stinks!

From the day we are born until the time we can get on Medicare (long may it last), most of us depend on stable, insurance providing jobs, or a complex patchwork of under-funded, over-utilized, public programs to fix us when we break. All too often this amalgam fails us, and we stay broken or have to take what substandard healing we can get, wherever we can get it.

And that, folks, does not pass the sniff test. That Stinks!