Or more to the point, it is two (2) Elephants, each in a different Room.
The Two Rooms represent the differing types of Health Care being promoted in America and the Elephants are .. well just stay tuned.
In the most recent Mid Term Elections, the Democrats did better than I had predicted for one reason...they focused on Health Care whereas Trump focused on the need for the Wall. I thought Trump's issue would ...pardon the pun - Trump - Health Care but I was wrong and in that respect, learned a good lesson.
Next to food security, I now believe people generally are concerned about their health and the health care available to them. The Dems will use this again in the coming General Election of 2020 and could well do it again successfully.
But permit me to digress a bit, first off I have to be totally honest with you... I do not understand how health care works in America. For instance, polling shows that up to 90% of Americans are happy with their health care. How does that jibe with the horrors one hears all the time about how deficient their health care is e.g. disqualifying preconditions and so on.
These studies go on to say that but 10% of Americans find themselves shut out of health care. So I am most simplistic, given that America spends more on health care than any other country on earth and given 90% like their care ...couldn't pocket change be used to incorporate the disenfranchised 10%? In other words if the current system is viewed favourably by so many, why do both major parties argue for an entire revamp of the process?
But let's return to the two (2) Elephants in the room.
The Elephant of the Democrats they who want to mirror our Canadian model where Health Care is paid by the State, delivered by bureaucrats and drastically rationed. It satisfies no one. Just the other day I heard a radio announcer tell his audience that his daughter was born with spina bifada and in need of an MRI. The wait list here in Canada was between 6 months and a year here in Canada. Heaven help you if you want to get a new knee. This same announcer the told of moving sshortly thereafter to the US - took his daughter to a Doctor who too suggested the need for a MRI and one was done at the time of their appointment. If the Canadian system is adopted, those good outcomes will be relegated to history. So the Dems are on the wrong track.
But so to are the Republicans since they are in the grip of a strong private health care companies, especially the Pharmaceuticals. That's their Elephant and at one point with Debt and Deficits getting so high, less and less people will be able to afford proper care. Permit me to give you an example. Until recently we had a condo in Florida and while there the past November, I got to know a clerk in one of the stores we frequented. One day she was not there and her replacement said she was off sick and he went on say 'if she takes off sick...she is really, really sick'.
Flash ahead to my next visit. Female clerk is back and I inquired if she had recovered from whatever illness she had had. Yes she told me "I had a temperature of 105 degrees Fahrenheit - (that is getting into fatal territory) and I stayed in my bath tub for several days until my temperature broke ..trying to keep cool." I asked her why she had not just gone to the nearest Emergency but she said she could not afford it ...apparently her health policy had a $6,000 deductible and as clerk making 7 bucks an hour ...that was out of her range.
I was dumbfounded...and presumably because she had coverage... albeit sorely deficient, she probably does not count in the 10% of Americans without coverage.
So the Elephants in the Two Rooms are Public vs Private Health Care.
Whereas studies show that the best health care systems are in Europe where hybrid public and private systems are the norm. They are cheaper, better run and result in much improved outcomes.
America would save bundles of bucks, at the same time Health Care improved for all.
But it won't happen of course. Republicans will continue to rely upon Big Private Health and Democrats on Big Public Service Unions and given the 50/50 split in America, no compromise will be possible. Pity.
As I See It...
K.D. Bell
Humour Corner:
There is a lesson to be learned from typing the wrong email address.
A Michigan couple decided to go to Florida to thaw out and planned to stay at the same hotel they stayed at 20 yrs ago where they honeymooned. Because of schedule conflicts the husband flew down first.
He checked in and immediately went to the computer room to email his wife however left one letter out of her email address. His email went somewhere in Houston where it reached a widow just returning home from her husband's funeral. She read the email and then screamed and fainted.
Her son who was in the next room heard the commotion and came running to find his mother passed out on the floor.
He also saw the open computer screen which read as follows:
To: My Loving Wife Subject: I have arrived Date: January 10, 2019
I know you're surprised to hear from me. They have computers here now and you are allowed to send emails to your loved ones. I've just arrived and have been checked in.
I've seen that everything has been prepared your arrival tomorrow and am looking forward to seeing you then. I hope your your journey is as uneventful as mine was.
P.S. Sure is freaking hot down here !!!
