Oregon Follow Up

To be honest, I am starting to find that arguing about these healthcare points is getting to be moot. Because we are arguing about a clearly broken system that we want to fix but we don't have the capacity to fix. We don't want to make the choice between covering everything for a few or covering little for a lot. We want there to be an option C but in this system, the option C will never be more than a lofty argument.

But if I force myself to stick within the system, I would be focused more on this idea of public participation and rich versus poor. I think, as it was brought up in class, that this divide is essentially the problem. Not because the rich are rich and the poor are poor, but because the rich make decisions for the poor for situations they can never actually understand. I do agree that the rich will always have more options and better health care, this is true, but then they make decisions about what these poor people can get when they themselves will never have to make a choice between preventative care or a transplant. Since they don't know, all they have is silly cost benefit analysis equations that come out with ridiculous answers about tooth cappings and appendectomies.

So that's why when in the Oregon case they had public hearings, I was very disturbed to find that only like 10% of the people at them would actually be affected by this case. So the data they were basing decisions off weren't even for the people it affected but by the health industry. It almost sounds like it's inevitable dirty hands if you are forced to take your information from this industry because that's what funds your political gain. I don't think that these people can be helped until they get a voice and so until then they're always going to lose something, whether it's being eligible for healthcare or being able to get a transplant while politicians make stupid comparisons about food stamps and fancy restraunts.