what is it all about?

Over the last several years I have spoken with many people about health care in The United States of America. Dreadfully few of these people expressed happiness with the system. Employers are continually in disdain over the high and still rising premiums. Employees are contemptuous of the high and rising deductibles, coinsurance percentages and out of pocket maximums. Patients boil over with accounts detailing errors on claims, denied claims, appeals, delays, dubious reasonable fee scales, excluded prescriptions, overcrowding, misdiagnoses, infections and poor case management. People in transition, either by job loss or career change, generally fall into two categories. They make exorbitant Cobra payments or go without coverage and white-knuckle it until they get back on their feet.

It seems almost incomprehensible that a large percentage of people would oppose changing the current system. But, that is the predicament in America today. Disdain for the current system and fear of a new system. We fear overspending more acutely than ever as a reaction to our gluttonous feast on bailouts. We fear government control intrinsically. And who among us has sunk back into enough denial to believe that without regulation corporations and insurance companies will do the right thing? Even among the experts there is great confusion and disagreement. Alas-we are stagnant to action.

No action and no change will of course produce the same results. Perfection will not appear as an option. We need to be open. We need to work together. We need to put our best collaboration of plans and ideas forward, take action and take a leap of faith.

‘In God We Trust’ is the official motto of The United States of America. It is a phrase that is proudly presented on our currency. I suppose the phrase has different meanings for different people. I view the phrase as an acknowledgment. In a way, it is a daily reminder that all of our efforts and all of our plans are ultimately beyond our control. Whether we change our healthcare system or not our medical requirements will continue to consume large amounts of our currency. I suspect that it not really about the money-it’s about the trust.