My daughter woke up today running a fever. 101.1º. Worrisome, I suppose, but not Earth-shaking. I kept her home, and gave her the doctor-recommended Tylenol/Motrin cocktail. An hour later, her fever spiked up to 104.5º. NOW I was worried. Of course, when you’re dealing with your child, part of being SuperDad is not letting on that it’s time to hit the panic button. So from her perspective, no big deal. I made two calls first. One to my ex-wife, to keep her in the loop. The other, to my girlfriend, Brenda, who’s a nurse. As I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, I like to get some “expert counsel” to make sure I’m neither overlooking something, nor going overboard. My medical brain trustees both advised a visit to the pediatrician. So, off we went.
I’ll cut to the chase scene, end the suspense, and tip you off to the big drama – she’s fine. A virus. Nothing treatable by medical science. Chicken soup, the NSAID of your choice every 4 to 6 hours, lots of liquids and bed rest. Of course, this being the 21st century, she’ll be out of school tomorrow, too, since they now require kids to be fever-free for 24 hours before returning to school.
Of course, all this got me to thinking about health care. Now you see, my daughter is covered under my ex’s insurance plan. That’s good, although her company coverage is a far cry from the good old days with 100% coverage, no-deductibles, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Of course, one of the tradeoffs is that I think we get a lot better treatment today than we did way back when. We know more now than we did. And practices have gotten a lot more efficient. They never had a “well kids” and “sick kids” entrances in my day. No, visiting your pediatrician’s waiting room was like bathing in a used petri dish back then.
But, of course, the medicine I’m talking about today is really still pre-ObamaCare. And that’s what has me worried.
You see, no matter which side of the debate you’re on, you need to worry when the non-partisan bean counters at the Congressional Budget Office say that the numbers on ObamaCare just don’t add up. And that’s IF this individual mandate stuff holds up in court. (I don’t think it will, as I can read the Constitutions and have found it lacking in any prior art, as they say, on anything that allows the government to force individuals to buy something, like it or not.)
But here’s the thing: as Gregory House M.D. would say, “Everybody lies.” I’d ad to that, “Especially Politicians.” Let’s face it, folks, I don’t care if you have a “D” or an “R” after your name – you’ve told your constituents some whoppers. They all lie. And most of those lies are based on the craven goal of getting themselves re-elected, time and time again. This time, though, the stakes are higher. They’re screwing around with our health and the health of our kids.
Now I won’t speak for you, but if/when somebody gets in between my child and her well-being, it’s NOT a pretty picture. If you wanna see me do my very best Lou Ferrigno impression, put my kid in harm’s way. I suspect most parents feel the same way about their own children. So when somebody tells me they are going to “fix” healthcare, it gets my attention.
The problem, of course, is the government generally mucks up everything it touches. Education. Taxes. Farming. Commerce. Name a government agency, and I’ll show you a bunch of career bureaucrats who care more about enforcing rules and making their numbers, than they do about the people they are ostensibly trying to “help.”
Now I realize full well that there ARE some conscientious public sector employees out there. If you’re one of them, thank you for your service. If you’re not, do us ALL a favor and take early retirement, huh?
But back to health care. See, the system we have now, for all it’s flaws, works pretty well for a majority of the system. The Left would have you believe the system was so hopelessly broken that the only thing to do was throw the baby out with the bath water and start again. The Republicans screwed up on this, because they lost the debate, and instead of fighting to fix what was wrong about the current system, they allowed the narrative to become a contest between ObamaCare and…NOT ObamaCare. In other words, the GOP never really came up with a competing plan to overhaul healthcare. They were thrust, wittingly or unwittingly, into the position of being the “party of NO.”
So…now what? It looks like a pretty safe bet that the Supremes are gonna tell Obama that it’s his party and he can cry if he wants to, but he ain’t gonna get his way on ObamaCare, period, end of story. So what comes next?
What I think we should ALL do is to begin questioning what would be the best way to approach fixing health care. For those on the right, I would caution that getting rid of ObamaCare is not the solution. It’s the prelude to fixing the problem. And the Democrats are going to pound you guys into the floor if you don’t have a plan to fix it, and fix it soon.
On the Left, you guys need to stop crying in your beer and start thinking “compromise.” Half a loaf and all that. Instead of an Omnibus dogma-laden bill that will, inevitably, try to run over my karma and everybody else on the right, howzabaout coming up with some more modest proposals that maybe, just maybe, we could all agree upon?
Who am I kidding. None of these clowns really wanna fix anything other than the next election. The Democrats will call the GOP the “Party of NO” to try and get milage out of it for the next election. Obama will try and claim the Supreme Court is engaging in “Judicial Activism” and lay the blame for the failure on Anybody But Obama. (Coincidentally, that’s who I’m voting for in the Fall. Anybody But Obama.) And the GOP will trumpet loudly to the base that they slayed the ObamaCare dragon, thinking that those who opposed ObamaCare will reward them in the election. Nope. They better get to fixing things – or at least looking as if they’re trying, or I predict the big winners in the November ballot will be somebody called “NONE OF THE ABOVE.”
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