Healthcare debate- Don’t Let a Broken System Break Us

The healthcare debate is currently raging across this country.

The healthcare crisis has been highlighted by the recession. A full 48 states have been seeing budget shortfalls due to either mismanagement or the recession and one of the first things cut in cost saving measures is a Medicaid or health benefit program for the needy.

Dennis Smith, the man in charge of Medicaid during the Bush administration is very worried that the private health system will be harmed. “When you are taking people out of the private sector, you are eroding it” according to him.  His model is to stay in the private sector and that those that can not afford it should be subsidized so that you can get the insurance that you want and need while continuing to participate in the private system.  He would like to see government support of Medicaid scaled back considerably.

Losing one’s job or preexisting conditions should definitely be addressed to that insurance is obtainable for the masses.  Mr. Smith suggests that government give tax credits or debit cards to allow them to choose the program they want.

There is no doubt that the healthcare issue provokes strong emotion from both sides, for and against President Obama’s health care plan.

Many people see this not just about healthcare, but also about individual rights and freedom.  They view the proposals as eroding into the very constitution that has sustained our country and inalienable rights.

Interest groups have spent over $57 million on television commercials and competing ads on healthcare has swamped the airwaves.  The debate has become a full-blown national campaign with leaflets, surveys, polls, town-hall meetings and media articles.

Many of those objecting to the proposals fear that the government will ration health care or that senior citizens will be denied end of life care.

Either way, the plan does call for a massive bill for over $1 trillion dollars that we do not have.  We do not want the current health care system to break us but we should not have a reform system that breaks us either.