Health care:
in need of a true diagnosis.

Last month I talked about the quality of life and whether the education system helps to achieve it. You may agree or disagree that the education system has its problems but one thing is certain: without health, quality of life is more difficult to attain. Our body, the material "house" for our souls has its own language and requirements. With time, we have learned and we are still learning what is best to preserve our health and how to treat various diseases of those less fortunate.

While the nature runs her course, the human kind works tirelessly to place artificial barriers and rules around this delicate issue, health care. Unfortunately, the results are not impressive. The number of uninsured in the United States grows each year but that is not the only problem America faces when it comes to the health care system. Those who do have health insurance are often unable to receive needed benefits; people who could afford the insurance are simply denied the coverage because of pre-existing conditions. "Families USA" in the "Failing Grades: State Consumer Protections in the Individual Health Insurance Market" reports as follows:

- "Only people who previously had continuous coverage through job based plans are protected from pre-existing condition exclusions under federal law"

- " Only five states (ME, MA, NJ, and VT) guarantees that all insurers will sell all policies to individuals regardless of their health"

Problems:
There is no doubt that our health care is in a desperate need of a reform. With the approaching elections, we people have the chance to vote for a candidate who can help to change and improve the current system. Everyone, including the presidential candidates admit the problems with US health care: non-portable, expensive and not available to all. Not everyone sees that these problems are mere side-effects of a real threat to US health care system: quick profit.

According to Families USA only "few states require that at least 75 cents of every dollar collected in premium be spent on medical services rather than administration and profit." Insurance and drug companies are taking advantage of the unregulated economy and ruthlessly gather their profit made in haste on your misfortune. For every law passed to protect a consumer, there are ten ideas of a corporate on how to get out of fulfilling it correctly. All of this happens under approving eye of the government.

Sick game.

While both of the presidential candidates are promising to work on these issues, only Barack Obama openly talks about the practices of insurance companies. "It would be one thing if all this money we spend on premiums and co-payments and deductibles went directly towards making us healthier and improving the quality of our care.

But it doesn't," he says in his speech in Iowa. Later he adds: "Since President Bush took office, the single fastest growing component of health care spending has been administrative costs and profits of insurance companies. Coming in a close second is the amount we spend on prescription drugs. In 2006, five of the biggest drug and insurance companies were among the fifty most profitable businesses in the nation." "Making this kind of money costs money, which is why the drug and insurance industries have also spent more than $1billion on lobbying and campaign contributions over the last ten years to block the reform we need".

The players.

I have reasons to believe this speech. Let's look at some information available: Center for Responsive Politics reports one drug company as "one of the biggest players in what is widely considered the most influential industry in Washington: pharmaceutical manufacturers". "The industry works hard to oppose efforts to make it easier for generic drugs to enter the market and fought efforts in Congress to attach a prescription drug benefit to Medicare." Insurance companies also made the "heavy hitter" list when it comes to lobbying. Their only goal: profit.

As heard on Lou Dobbs recently: "The Center of Responsive Politics estimates registered lobbyists have contributed roughly half a million to John McCain and about $33,000 to Barack Obama. With its policy against contributions from Washington lobbyists, the Obama Campaign believes this is money from non-Washington lobbyists."
Cure or just a band-aid?

Which health care plan will work better? I don't know. Mr. John McCain is trying to convince us that this is about the leader. His campaign calls for a "Leader we can believe in". A bold statement that is supposed to create feeling of safety and trust but instead left a bad taste and disbelief. Obama's original motto "Change we can believe in" created first is just one word away.

Not only McCain's message is not original but also it asks the voter to blindly trust one person. The truth is that it is not about the leader, it is about the change he can only help to bring.

We live in a society that wants to believe that a disease can be cured with one pill. Great amounts of money are spent in advertisements each year to support that myth.
Most of the TV commercials are devoted to drugs. We learn symptoms of various illnesses as we watch news. Brainwashed by drug manufacturers' propaganda and encouraged to seek doctor's help, we fall in the trap of the people whose interest is not your health. Their only destination is profit, and your health problems - their gain.

We live in a society where the most important freedom became a "free enterprise" and success and happiness are measured only in a dollar value, how can we expect a health care system to be any different? John McCain takes advantage of our eagerness for quick fix while running his campaign, promising a "miracle leader", a paternal figure that will take care of everything.

It's foolish enough to think that one pill can cure a disease. It's even worse to believe in leader alone trying to cure the system. Before any change can take place, we people must grow up. Grow up enough to admit the fact that no nation is perfect and know that the true patriotism does not lie in praising values never practiced. A true wisdom comes from a humble acceptance of the unknown; only then one can learn something new. Nobody can go very far only by saying "we are the greatest nation in the world", we must work hard to deserve this opinion and hear it from our neighbors. There are a lot of things that we must "unlearn" before the door of true reform can open and our ego must not get in a way..

It's been long time since we have seen a true change. It's been too long our students (some uninsured) turn the pages of history to learn that unregulated economy and "trickle down" theory helps only those on the very top. It's time to make new history starting with a candidate that believes that we all can bring about the change. It's time for us to seek and appreciate even the ugliest of the truths and start from there. Don't let one person alone write the next chapter!

-BY ELA UCZARCZYK-GESKE