Obama goes on the road for health care reform

June 14, 1:04 PMBoise Liberal ExaminerRussell Krauss

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President Obama, on the road for health care reform (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

There are three fundamental problems with our health care system that President Barack Obama is attempting to fix, but there is no guarantee he will succeed, nor is there any firm indication yet of what might finally emerge from Congress later this year.

The problems are, (1) spiraling health care costs, (2) an inefficient, exorbitantly expensive private health insurance system that denies coverage to millions, and leaves most vulnerable to losing coverage at least some time over their adult lives, and (3), a pathologically antagonistic, two-party political system which simply does not work.  It has become so dysfunctional that half the Republicans won't even acknowledge that there is a crisis.

Consequently, Obama's road to reform has been splattered with potholes and obstructed by roadblocks and mines put in place by those who either benefit financially from the current state of disarray, or are ideologically opposed to any but market driven solutions and tax cuts (Republicans).  

Ironically, as this bloated system expands as a percentage of the nation's GDP, dwarfing what other advanced industrialized nations spend, but producing inferior outcomes all the same, the number of people who benefit from or exploit the system - the providers - increases too, and reform becomes less and less tenable, as the vested interests dig in to protect their turf.  Health care has become like the financial sector, voraciously gobbling up a larger and larger share of the nation's output of goods and services, as if these sectors were desired ends in themselves, rather than institutions that facilitate the economic and physical health of the nation's people.  Perversely, they now devour our limited fiscal and natural resources at the expense of other  economic activity, such as energy, infrastructure development, and manufacturing, the military industrial complex, of course, excepted.

Along this vein, in its lead editorial today, the New York Times singled out doctors as one of the causes associated with excessive health care costs, as they sometimes prescribe tests, treatments or drugs that are often unnecessary or have been found no more effective than older, less expensive protocols.  But in doing so, I'm afraid they have incurred the wrath of the medical profession while omitting other factors, equally culpable, from the equation, including ourselves, the demanding consumers of the health care system.

This unruly health care giant tramples our economy without restraint, because it is self regulating, self indulgent, and vulnerable to greed, corruption and the "bubble" phenomenon.  This is because, as bad and as full of holes as the health insurance system is, it does provide most of us with the big bucks needed to fuel the providers, in a vicious circle of spiraling costs, increasing premiums and ever more benefit dollars flowing back to pay for undermanaged services.  It is the last of these that is like throwing gasoline onto a fire: the more that our insurance covers, the larger the health care system grows to burn up all that money.  We need to face the fact that as a society, we have to ration health care, because if we don't it will continue to cannibalize the rest of the economy.  

There is no magic elixir.  We have only so much GDP to go around.  We have only so much capacity to produce the goods and services we need to live productive and satisfying lives. We can't let health care usurp more than a reasonable share.  But it will, if we continue on this path.  We have to recognize that we need a fairer system - where everyone is guaranteed basic health care - and a more realistic one, that recognizes the limitations of our resources.

The health insurance crisis is just one more example of unfettered capitalism run amok.  We've let the health care system pillage and plunder long enough.  But I am not optimistic that this nation is capable of having a rational dialogue about our long term goals, objectives, limitations and necessary sacrifices.  It seems nowadays that on every issue we are crippled and paralyzed by mindless political demagoguery and ideological hackery.