Hope? nope.

A few days ago, I noticed that some of my friends posted this phrase on their facebook status:

“No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.”

Simple, direct, sincere… who could argue with such a heartfelt statement.

And it’s true.

Of course, the following statements are also true:

• Who should die because they were hit by a drunk driver?
• Who should die because they slipped in the shower and hit their head?
• Who should die because they were born in a third world country and contracted dysentary?

Like it or not, people are going to die, and many times, it’s for something insignificant. Sometimes not, but one way or the other, we all share the same ultimate fate.

Now you might argue, that the richest country in the history of the world can certainly afford to shell out a few trillion dollars for those that cannot afford healthcare, but in reality, who are these people? Not “the poor”. There are public health clinics that provide free or reduced cost services including vacinations and critical care.  No, the poster person is usually someone who has exhausted their life savings on treatments for some long term disease, but guess what? No matter how much money you throw at a disease, the disease often wins. A mother loses a child. A boy loses his dad. Sad stuff, but no matter how much money you throw at a problem, this is always going to happen. Do we spend our entire GNP on healthcare (and the subsequent federal deficit it is sure to generate)?  Whether it’s a private insurance company or a federal bureaucracy, limits must be set by someone. This is inevitable and will be accepted by everyone, until a TV reporter shows us another person dying of a long term disease whose federal benefit has run out, and the whole thing starts over.

In the past many in the liberal wing of the democrat party have advocated for Single Payer insurance. The “payer” in this case would be the federal government. Realizing that the majority of Americans would oppose such a thing, the idea of “public option” has surfaced. A public option would set up the framework of a federal insurance company to fill the gap left by private insurers. This seems benign enough, until you realize that many employers will take advantage of this for their own employees and all of a sudden, the public “option” becomes the ONLY option and voila, we’re all on Obamacare. Cost estimates skyrocket, not unlike other erroneous estimates of this administration.

Yes, there are certainly ways that we as a society can reform the current system for the benefit of all, but it requires more that a cute catchy phrase. It takes some serious thought, some honest debate and some compromise.