Health-care fight far from over

This summer we all have seen uproar and calamity in regards to health-care reform and what it might mean for America, if passed.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said the reform would have “death panels,” the Democrats are having a highly-publicized stubborn fight over the public option and people like Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, are throwing out all types of allegations saying that the government would “pull the plug on Grandma.” And even though we’ve been hearing these things along with other pros and cons of health-care reform for months now, the real battle has barely even begun.

One of the biggest lightning rods for controversy in this whole debate is the public option that is being discussed throughout all the media outlets varying from television, radio, print media, blogs, etc.

Now, in a perfect world for the Democrats, the public option would be hailed as the right reform for all and everyone would jump on the public option bandwagon and everyone would live happily ever after.

But we all do live in reality and know that while some Democrats don’t, the votes for the public option are just simply not there. It could squeak by in the U.S. House of Representatives but it is all but certain that a public option won’t pass in the Senate.

Republicans are clearly too stubborn to give any wiggle room on it and even conservative Democrats such as Sen. Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, are adamantly opposing this option.

When the White House gave a little leeway to mandating the public option, House Democrats had a tantrum saying that it wasn’t reform unless there was a public option and that they weren’t voting for it unless there was a public option and all these other things that showed how close-minded they were being about this whole issue. Granted, the Republicans are doing no better, if not worse, but Democrats have the numbers that could actually get this through.

Apparently they weren’t told as kids that you can’t get everything you want. If they could stop fighting with each other and actually try to compromise, something could actually be done. There’s more than one way to skin a cat so it’s time for everyone to be a little more open minded, give a little and create a solution for mostly everybody to agree on.

Congress has a tendency to make much more noise than progress, and some of these orchestrated town hall meetings have only fueled the fire. Not only are things such as the public option sparking this debate, but other soon-to-be-controversial issues, such as the bill to come from the Senate Finance Committee, are as well. While it is the only bipartisan bill, it is almost guaranteed to be picked apart by some members of Congress. Not to mention how health care reform is going to fix the skyrocketing cost of Medicare and Medicaid.

In 1965, the House Ways and Means Committee projected in 25 years, Medicare would cost about $9 billion. Twenty-five years later it costs about $67 billion. Now you can argue about party ideologies and relay talking points all day long, but numbers don’t lie. Those costs have to be contained somehow.

These, among many other issues have to be discussed in an open minded and civil way if anything is to get done. When our elected officials return in September, they need to learn to put their egos and bullheaded ways behind them to fix this. Until that happens, this fight will keep going on just as it has for decades.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 4 2009. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry