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In Politics Commentary

By Steve Jagler Special to OnMilwaukee.com E-mail author | Author bio More articles by Steve Jagler

Published Aug. 12, 2009 at 2:33 p.m.

Tags: health care, health care reform, health care debate

Lost in the heated political rhetoric surrounding the debate over American health care reforms are some simply human dramas that can be framed in Constitutional and Judeo-Christian contexts.

For instance, ponder the following scenario: 10 Milwaukee children are lined up side-by-side. Each of them has a fever and a terrible, painful ear infection. Six of them will go to see a doctor today, because their guardians have health insurance. Those six children will receive antibiotics and pain relief and will sleep comfortably tonight, well on their way to recovery.

Four of them will not. Their families have no insurance and cannot afford another visit to the clinic, much less the medicines that will be needed for treatment. They will go to bed in pain tonight. Their infections will grow worse -- so bad that ultimately they will be taken to the hospital emergency room somewhere down the line.

Once at the hospital, they will be treated and released. With no insurance, their families will not be able to pay the E.R. bills. Those costs will be written off by the hospitals as bad debts to the indigent. The hospitals must recoup those costs somewhere. The costs will be passed along to the bills of other patients who have health insurance. Those other patients, and very often their employers, will end up paying higher insurance premiums and deductibles.

And round and round it goes.

In the American pursuit of life, liberty and happiness, is anything more important than health care? Is basic health care not a right, rather than a privilege? If health care is not a right, who should be empowered to decide who receives it and who doesn't? You? Me? A government agency? An insurance company? And what should that decision be based upon? Wealth?

The American health care system is a hodgepodge of capitalism and socialism. It is redundant. It is bloated. Compared with the health care systems in all other civilized nations, it is inefficient and expensive.

And those excessive costs are borne by our consumers and our businesses. Those costs are built-in overhead burdens that make America companies less competitive in the global marketplace.

President Barack Obama is urging Congress to reform America's health care system.

Few would argue about the fractured inefficiencies of the American system. Of course, the arguments arise in the debate over how health care is provided, or more succinctly, how it is paid for and who pays for what.

Many American business executives have long decried double-digit annual employee health care cost increases. Still, they have been reticent to support reforms and are understandably cynical about more government involvement in health care, even though they know intuitively that the current system is failing.

The stakes are high. Aside from the very human costs, the health care industry accounts for about one-sixth of the American economy.

The editorial staff at BizTimes Milwaukee is not taking a stance in the contentious fight over health care reform. We choose instead to be a messenger, a shepherd of ideas. In doing so, we enlisted the help of a wide field of professionals in a variety of occupations and organizations in southeastern Wisconsin to provide their best ideas for health care reform. We asked them to complete this simple sentence: "If I were in charge of health care reform, the first thing I would do is ..."

Our intent is to add food for thought to the most important public policy debate this nation has had since the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. The following essays from some of the region's most thoughtful people were collected by BizTimes Milwaukee reporter Alysha Schertz.

Click here to read the discussion.

Online bonus: Politicos weigh in

This week's BizTimes Milwaukee special report about health care reforms includes special Milwaukee Biz Blogs contributed by U.S. Reps. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) and Paul Ryan (R-Janesville). Their essays are posted here and here.

May the discussion and the debate serve this country well.

15 comments about this article. Post a comment / write a review.

Recent Talkbacks ...

Posted by MKE Luvva on Aug. 19, 2009 at 1:35 p.m. (report)

I have traveled to Italy many times and have twice taken advantage of health care there with great results and zero cost. I have never heard a complaint from anyone there, either, about health care. Sure, their hospitals don't look like resorts, but that's not a sign of the care they receive.

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Posted by jjrakman on Aug. 19, 2009 at 1:27 p.m. (report)

Why do leftists always manufacture absurd what if scenarios that never happen, to try to prove their point? Honestly, can you point to a single actual case that represents your sci fi-esque what if dystopian fantasies? Obama isn't trying to reform health care, he's trying to socialize health care. And given the bizarre Orwellian provisions in the actual bill, if you bothered to read it before writing your piece, it appears he's attempting to do much more than that. Not once have I ever heard anyone remark that the health care system of Italy, or England, or Luxembourg is the envy of the world. Would you be willing to fly to some place like Italy for a colonoscopy or some other treatment, in the same manner that many foreigners fly here for their own treatment? Doubtful. If our health care system is a hodgepodge of capitalism and socialism as you put it, then rather than socializing it, the better route would be to purge the existing socialist elements in favor of an entirely capitalist system. It is a matter of historical fact after all, that socialism always leaves behind it a trail of hell on earth wherever its allowed to fester. Look no further than the city of Detroit, for physical evidence of that.

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Posted by sas_tarr on Aug. 19, 2009 at 11:13 a.m. (report)

My vision of a balanced healthcare system looks a lot like Switzerland. I'd replace Medicare and Medicaid (and a lot of other social programs) with Public Option available for all (regardless of age, sex, religion, or income level). Naturally, the coverage would be greatly rationed in order to not raise any taxes, but then at least some basic healthcare would be available to all and I don't see why a child should be denied medical care when someone's grandpa would have a cadillac of insurance at my expense (he had all his life to save for his late years, he should have his children to take care of him as well). Now, if anyone don't like rationed health insurance, he could go and buy some supplemental insurance (the same way as there're supplemental health insurances to Medicare). So, we would get private insurance competition (for supplemental insurance market) with basic coverage available for all and without tax hike (rationing of the public option is the key here, the public option should be worst insurance available to anyone but for no cost, not cadillac of insurance).

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Posted by CoolerKing on Aug. 17, 2009 at 7:16 a.m. (report)

PricewaterhouseCoopers did a study on healthcare spending and found a little over 400 billion dollars is being wasted on excessive/unneccessary tests and insurance claim processing (i.e. claims bouncing back and forth between the physician and the insurance company). I'd think these would be 2 areas to zero in on regarding any healthcare reform.

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Posted by BrewCityTimmy on Aug. 15, 2009 at 4:28 p.m. (report)

Other than asking what you would do first the better question would be If what could/should/would health care look like if we actually started with a clean slate. What if we didn't have insurance or the term "pre-existing conditions." I think most people would be dumbfounded if they actually had to pay for their insurance. My wife has type 1 diabetes. That is the juvenile version. She takes excellent care of herself. But insurance companies don't look at that they just see a disease that she had no control over. The total premium for our family of three is around $1000 a month for a high deductible HSA type coverage. Oh ya that is a month. So take those premiums plus the high out of pocket expenses this could total 15,000 a year or more. That doesn't seem right. If she was in and out of the hospital all the time i could understand but she does a great job at controlling the disease. I don't know what the right answer is but i would be willing to pay more taxes not just for my wife but for the others that balance going to the doctor and putting food in their kids bellies. BTW like the article said you are already paying for a universal health care plan by covering costs that hospitals can't cover. We might as well put some order to it.

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