Henri Reynard Speaks Out

What Is The Price For Good Health?

---

Whoops folks, while we were asleep the cost of medical coverage rose again, and options for consumers shrank again. At this pace we will soon have one provider for the whole nation and no one will be able to afford them. Well maybe not just one, but it seems likely that the estimated forty percent of the people in this country who have no health insurance will continue to rise. Why, when we are living in the richest nation in the world, and paying the most per capita for our health care of any industrialized nation, should such problems continue to plague us? Because we are stupid! We continue to invent ways to keep people alive beyond any reasonable hope that they will ever get up and live a normal life again. We continue to expect that the human body should live on indefinitely. We continue to believe that no matter how much pain it is in or how much the person residing in it hates the life they are living that life should continue. Enough already, some people should be given the simple right to die when they feel life is over! The good and honest people of Oregon believe so too, they have passed a law to that effect. But is that enough to guarantee their right to die? No! John Ashcroft, our benighted Attorney General, has decided that he will use his office to punish any doctor so bold as to obey the law of the State of Oregon. We are stupid if we continue to allow men like John to set our agendas in this society.

There are a lot of pieces of research that promise to help everyone in this nation achieve better health. Research into the causes of aging will bring great rewards by possibly extending the quality of life far into our later years. Research into stem cells and the cloning thereof could eventually cure many currently incurable diseases. Research into human growth hormone replacement has yielded better understanding of the mechanisms of aging. It offers the prospect of extending vitality well into the ninth decade for millions of people. Our attorney General is directly opposed to stem cell cloning technology. He hasn't yet come out against extended life and health yet but it seems plausible that he will. So the same man who defines technology that saves lives as evil also defines as evil the taking of that life at the owner's request. I guess John doesn't believe that we own our own life. If not who owns it? Is it the government? No I believe the constitution explicitly bars that kind of ownership of any person. Is it God? Whose God are we talking about here? The projection of that kind of belief into the law of the Federal Government makes a mockery of the Doctrine of Separation of Church and State. Obviously that is certainly one of this Administration's agendas, to eliminate the separation of church and state. Of course at the same time this Administration is the most kill crazy one in a long time. Their vigorous embracing of the death penalty is no small contradiction of their religiosity about life, but then consistency is ever the hobgoblin of small minds.

The cost of health care for the USA is around 1.1 trillion dollars this year. That is one half of the national budget, and about eleven percent of the total GNP (Gross National Product). It is also far greater than the entire Gross National Product of China, a nation of 1.2 billion people. It is over seventy percent of the GNP of California, the fifth largest economy in the world. That cost is growing rapidly and will reach over 1.4 trillion dollars about the time the Bush deficits really start to bust the bank. Regarding those deficits. It is truly strange that owing money to the people who are getting the majority of the tax cuts is good for us, We are talking about over two trillion additional dollars owed. At the same time, taxing them to get the same money for use in paying the government's bills is bad for us. How's that? Paying interest on all of that money will make our nation richer in the end than accumulating it as we go in taxes? Whoopee, we have discovered the real value of money; it is the sacred grease of politics. It can also make lies true, and brave men quail, whiten your teeth and brighten your smile. Only in the hands of government is it evil, and then only when it is income from taxes paid instead of an interest-bearing loan.

The benefactors in the great health care scam are the insurance companies. They are under pressure from bad choices made in the 1990's regarding premium costs and investments. They are also unhappy with having to pay out claims related to malpractice by physicians who work for their HMO's and other service providers. Cleaning up the torts problem should reduce the cost of health car then shouldn't it? But it will not slow down that growth curve at all. Much of that 1.1 trillion dollars will pass through their hands. This Administration wants to run the Federal Government's portion of those costs through their hands also. This will cost us more than allowing the Feds to keep paying the money directly to those same insurance companies for their services in the HMO's and Hospitals they own. That's right folks we are supposed to believe that the government will save money by putting their money into the hands of the insurance companies first, rather than negotiating directly with their subsidiaries in the Medical industry. It boggles the mind what lies politicians will come up with when their palms are greased well enough.
The cost of accident insurance is rising based on the insurance companies' belief that Terrorism will cost a lot of money over the next ten years. If that turns out not to be true the premiums will not come down easily. Of course the accident insurers new policies now exclude terrorism as a basis for a claim unless you pay a special rate. I wonder if our health care plan will refuse to pay for care if we are injured with a car bomb driven into place by a terrorist? Not yet, maybe later, when we aren't watching the insurance companies so closely.

So what can be done to stem the tide of additional costs appended to health care each year? First be a smart consumer, don't buy coverage that you don't need. Second take responsibility for your own health; that is the best health plan available. Third be skeptical when doctors offer you a test for which you don't understand the need. You need to question the value of things that you doubt are necessary. My mother lived to 90 without entering a hospital more than once during her last forty-eight years of life. When they kept her for two days she signed herself out AMA, (against medical advice). She lived another twelve years after that without knowing everything that was wrong with her, and died at home in bed. Forth, listen to the debate about Medicare that is going on today. Without that basic coverage several million elderly people will suffer more untreated illness and die for lack of care. Our "Compassionate Conservatives" are too busy legislating against cloning human stem cells to find a real solution to the Medicare problem. Fifth, exercise, eat well and treat your body like you own it, it really belongs to you and you only. Sixth do not place your trust in drugs, they kill more people every year than terrorists, far, far more. finally, laugh love and be happy, it is the quality of life and not its quantity that counts most of all.