Astrid came into my lab just a few days ago to ask about the health care debate in the U.S. I believe her question was something like "Is that how you discuss things in your country?"
Yes, sadly. Whenever it's important and we feel strongly about something the conversation degenerates into accusations of "Death Panels." Jenny and I have been ranting to the Europeans about how ridiculous the situation has gotten.
I think that almost all people can agree on certain things:
1. Our current system is not working.
2. Health insurance ought the be available for everyone and reasonably affordable.
3. No one should kill anyone else's grandmother.
As you may know, I'm now living in (socialist?) Germany and the health insurance system seems to work reasonably well. Here are some things I've noticed.
1. People are not afraid of loosing their insurance coverage.
2. People go to the doctor a lot, and seem to be able to choose a doctor.
3. German grandmothers are not subject to death panels.
4. People don't have to wait in line to buy bread.
Now, if we could all talk about this rationally. No one is going to turn the U.S. into Russia. I've started a campaign (by which I mean I e-mailed a link to Jenny) to get people to e-mail Obama. Here's the link. I found it satisfying. I'm considering e-mailing him just to say how my day was.
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"Health insurance ought the be available for everyone and reasonably affordable."
I'm not sure everyone agrees with this. I think some people do think health insurance should be (dare I say it) "rationed" by price. Also, no one seems to discuss whether or not health care (different from health insurance, but not, apparently, in the U.S. system) or health insurance should be considered a substitute expenditure for housing, or food.
Someone (who is a grad student in health policy) told me that a part of the bill says that the govt will try to bring down costs, but (they don't have to) and if that doesn't work, they can continue to tax people forever and raise taxes forever.
Oh God, Katy is making my head hurt with actual, well-formed opinions. I was going to just make some sort of joke...ouch.
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