Got Health Care?

I haven't been too vocal on the Obama Health Care initiative mostly because it's so boring and I get feverish chills looking a insurance jargon. But I do know that what we have now in this country is a mess and it needs fixing. I have pretty good coverage at my place of work, but I also feel trapped in a dead-end job in hostile work-environment. If I could take my coverage with me for the price of my premium I'd do it. I think we should take the best parts of Kaiser and of the VA and Medicare and make a system that works for everyone to receive basic care. We could tax the elective surgeries to help pay for basic care. I see a whole lot of possibilities. But sitting around complaining and doing nothing to change the system is just plain wrong and un-American.

I believe it is the insurance industry and the drug companies which are fueling the opposition. It's not those overwhelming majority that voted for Obama, many for the very reason of changing the health-care system in this country.

I remember a day, before the inundation of television commercials and magazine ads for various drugs and medications, that you went to a doctor and a doctor prescribed the appropriate medication after evaluating your symptoms. Now the drug companies want us to go and ask our doctor for the drugs. Seems back-ass-wards to me.

I propose that we curtail all drug advertising for the next ten years and put all that money that they would have spent on advertising into the health-care reform effort. Provide free or reduced cost drugs to those who need them, the young and the infirm. Who in their right-winged mind would deny medicine to those in need?

Which brings me to another topic on the top of my mind today. There are so many mixed messages on drugs these days. I mean on the one-hand we have so many commercials about prescription drugs and every kind of pill for what ails you; Just don't get hooked or dependent on those drugs. And any time there is a high-profile celebrity over-dose, people will often, in a knee-jerk response quickly blame the doctors that prescribed the medicines. And they have always blamed and shamed the patient for their weakness, should they become addicted.

I dream of a day when drug companies and insurance companies will put the welfare and well-being of the people ahead of their profits and shareholders. Because shareholders get sick too.