The Ultimate Price: The Bottom Dollar in Healthcare Reform
The Ultimate Price: The Bottom Dollar in Healthcare ReformThe most recent victims of our states radical cuts from the state’s Medicaid Rolls, the –wheels are now in motion. Tennessee’s decision to eradicate yet another class of TennCare / Medicaid recipients of The Daniels Class, 140,000 social security recipients are currently in the process of being recertified to determine their eligibility for Medicaid. This waiver was requested and granted as a measure to limit the number of Medicaid recipients the state would be forced to cover under federal law.
As a result, 140,000 people like myself may the healthcare we fought so hard to obtain. The poor, the sick and the elderly. The disabled residents of Tennessee. We will now join the ranks of the other 47 million Americans without health insurance. More people that will be forced to rely upon the federal government because the individual states have failed them. Shifting the burden once again. But somebody has to pay.
So the discussion has gone round and round and round again just to find the right place to dump the costs. From private to public and then back again. Upon the shoulders our children and the conscience of a nation.
But we need to determine where and when we draw the line. We need to decide on the bottom line and just how much we are willing to gamble on our individual welfare and the health of our nation. How much is it worth. $1 Billion $7 Billion? $700 Billion? Do we value our healthcare more than our vehicles or our homes? Companies that profited by institutionalizing predatory lending bankrupting families, communities and the country as a result.
To be clear, WE ARE ALL PAYING!
I can assure you once you lose your ability to have faith in yourself to be faced with the brutal reality of the failing safety net we call Social “Security,” material belonging and personal property have lost all monetary value. And when that moment comes, you realize you have already paid far too much.
To be clear, YOU ARE ALL PAYING. Yes, all of us are paying some price.....
Where is the safety net? Where is the American Dream that I so diligently chased after for so many years? What was the point spending so much on an education that will never be utilized? I understand the how; I just don't understand why.
Elyssa Durant
Nashville, TennesseeLabels: Drafts Elyssa Durant, Health Policy, Poverty, True Story
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
The Powers That Beat: The Ultimate Price: The Bottom Dollar in Healthcare Reform
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2 comments:
Great post, though I'm sorry to hear about the anti-progressive thinking being demonstrated by the state legislature. It never ceases to amaze me that the people who claim to understand the ins and outs of budgets and the running of the economy fail to see how the investment into the health of the citizenry is not a GOOD investment, something that cannot fail to bear good fruit down the line as the investment produces dividends - LESS spending on palliative care and chronic care - the two most expensive types of care in medicine after emergency medicine (I'm not including things like the treatment of mental illnesses which represent one of the single highest costs in medicine ... but I digress).
It is difficult to get people to understand that, at this juncture, the cost of health care should not be looked at as the reason for not investing more of the GDP into it, the cost - right now - is irrelevant for the simple reason that it is the future of the system that we have to look at to understand the ramifications (and need) for reform.
Alas, most politicians tend to be short-sighted, myopic, and easily influenced by anyone waiving enough money under their nose to influence their vote. The facts (or future) tend not to have much influence on the final outcome, so long as the precious status quo isn't disturbed ... too much.
Just imagine what the health care system could look like if the United States took 10% of their military expenditures (not to mention the cost of the Iraq war ... I'm torn on Afghanistan - okay, end it - put that money towards health care as well): hundreds of billions of dollars would be suddenly freed for the purpose of caring for the citizens of the Republic. If that doesn't sound like a patriotic thing to be doing with the tax dollars collected by the government, I don't know what a good cause is (and I'm fairly certain that I have a pretty decent idea as to what a good cause is, so don't even go there).
The problem is, health care has become a massive profit generating business and, subsequently, the businesses - and those individuals who profit from them - are not interested in reforming a system that makes them rich by denying service. It is a sick, broken system that needs more than reform, it needs to be recreated, revamped, and completely recast so it serves the people rather than the shareholders.
Sometimes it is okay to have something that is truly 'not for profit', health care is one of those things.