Reaching the finish line?

It seems so interesting that the US government has been trying for almost a century to reform this country's healthcare system and perhaps now that feat is ready to be accomplished. Although I'm not sure I like the idea of the President and the Democrats pushing the bill through with only a simple majority vote but then again I feel like they don't have many other options. If the legislation was brought out for a full debate it might take months to pass.

I can see how the process could anger people though. It probably seems like Congress or at least the Democrats are going behind peoples' backs just to get the legislation through. As it stands, it seems like the only way to go is to have the House pass the bill approved by the Senate and then add further measures. I think the additional measures the Democrats want to add do include some of the Republican reform but I do wish there could be more bipartisan support just because that seems only fair, but I can't say that I really sympathize with Republicans. They can't seem to come up with an original argument against the bill other than repeating like a broken record that the bill will raise taxes and the deficit. Their argument has been the same throughout this debate, even when some of their reforms were included in Obama's legislation. Though I can see how powerful an effect the idea of raised taxes and big government is since its sparked a whole "tea party" protest movement because people feel like their government no longer represents them.

On a slightly different note, I saw on PBS's the News Hour they had an interview with a health insurance executive. Some of the arguments he had did make some sense to me. He talked about how insurance costs are only part of a larger problem and that there are many other costly portions that have to be dealt with. I rather agree with that since I feel like we do use a lot of procedures like CT scans and MRIs when they might not be so necessary and those costs have to be dealt with. However, I can't also help feeling that the insurance industry has a lot to answer for. The executive on the program kept claiming that the insurance industry has supported covering people with pre-existing conditions as proposed when the public option was still on the table. When he was questioned about how insurance companies routinely drop people from coverage, the executive claimed that some people did not want coverage and that the industry has made efforts to cover more people. I can see how all of that might be true but I also see that because the insurance industry is out to make a profit and if they cover more people they really only want to cover only those people who are least needy. In that sense I feel like health insurance lives up to its name since the only people the industry wants to cover are those that are healthy.

For PBS's coverage see: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan-june10/healthcare_03-15.html