Don’t give up just yet

Just a quick post this time, on the healthcare debate in the US and Barack Obama’s latest set-back courtesy of the voters of Massachusetts. I may go into healthcare in greater depth later, but I just wanted to put this up immediately for digestion.

I do hope that this newly elected senator doesn’t abuse the powers of America’s least democratic institution, but he does equally have a duty to represent the wishes of the people of his Commonwealth accurately. I’m not even going to get into the debate about the role of the gerontocratic senate in this day and age.

What I would say is this:

1. America will eventually be bankrupted by it’s current healthcare industry and something needs to change. The problem is not that the pharmaceutical companies don’t deserve to make a profit on their life saving drugs (I’m sure it was an episode of The West Wing where they explained that whilst it was true that it cost 25c to make each pill the first pill costs about $450million). The problem in fact is that they’re not even efficiently run!

2. It’s troubling that in “the most developed nation on Earth”, or as I have heard it put, “the last Superpower” has millions of uninsured citizens.

Perhaps a compromise, before all this hard work is thrown away never to be revisited, would have two parts:

1. All minors should be put on the Medicare programme (or at least have their healthcare cost met without question by the government.
2. Stop the practice of denying healthcare based on pre-existing conditions.

It’s not going to solve everything, but it will have a massive impact going forwards; not least in helping provide millions of uninsured Americans health insurance, but also in guaranteeing that the most vulnerable part of American society, children (under-privileged ones in particular), have access to the best healthcare system in the world.