Minor Thoughts on Health Care

My biggest disappointment with the recently passed health care legislation has nothing to do with our governments attempt to cover the uninsured and help the folks out that struggle to be covered (and, subsequently, help the medical community who never turns away anyone in need, regardless of the cost or the potential litigation if something goes wrong during the free procedures). We have had a health care crisis in this country for a while and we desperately needed to address it. My disappointment is in the outcome. When the “smartest guys in the room” got together to take on this issue, this is the best they could do? Really? Did we have to layer on all of this debt? Was that really the only solution? I heard a lot of different ideas throughout the debate and this is what we ended up with?

Of course, there is so much we don’t know about how this will work (and that is another problem). The process was murky at best, purposefully clandestine at worst. It may turn out to be a raging success; arguments are persuasive both for and against that outcome. But there are enough people on both sides of the political aisle that have grave concerns about what this is going to cost the American people for years to come (and remember, the government is using our money to fund this (it’s called taxes—yours, mine, almost everyone's); it’s not coming from anywhere else... it can’t, there is no “anywhere else” for it to come from). Yes, there are positives in this legislation, the intentions of most in this process, I want to believe, are magnanimous with a strong desire to help folks in need. But the potential negatives are staggering and frightening. Where will we end up as a country (as individuals), regardless of intentions? Does anyone really know? What will be the real costs, monetarily as well as in other aspects of our lives? And will it be worth it? Time will tell.

Until the end game is played out and we discover what this will truly cost us, I choose to think about the single mother in my home group who is strapped and cannot afford health insurance but is finally free from the abusive relationship she endured for too long. Or my kids who are just starting out in their careers and how this may help them get their feet on the ground. But I will temper that with thoughts of friends who own small businesses and of family members who toil in the medical field. Who gets help and who gets hurt? The scales are rarely balanced which makes all decisions harder (and personal). I will continue to pray for justice and love and that trying to apply that to some doesn’t cripple the rest of us in the process.