Throwaway People

I listened rapt, to the Health care reform round table last week and had the impression that there were two complete different attitudes coming from the two sides. The attitudes so different, that I ultimately began to wonder whether any rapprochement was possible. One side felt that good enough was good enough and that we should press forward with the Bill as is, while the other side seemed to feel that good enough was not only bad, but that it was so bad we should start all over again.

Everyone had a story to tell of some unfortunate who had no insurance but had been diagnosed with some catastrophic illness. They all seemed to be saying that these examples were why we must fix health care. But with such opposite approaches to reform, how can a path be made from where we are now to wherever it is we want to be? My concern continues to be that the two party approach, the two camp approach, the diametrically opposing viewpoints approach really isn't working. When are our leaders going to figure out that the best approach probably lies somewhere in the middle?

I'm reading this great book, "Getting the Love you Want" by Dr. Harville Hendrix. It's a book about relationships (obviously) but it's germane to the challenges being faced by the Congress because what's going on there, is a study in how bad relationships make for bad decisions (and policy). In the book, Dr. Hendrix makes the simple suggestion that if we want our relationships to work, we must make the relationship our primary focus. He posits that by making the care and feeding of the relationship itself the primary, if not sole, responsibility of the parties, the parties' needs are served. His view is that if we spend our time ensuring that the relationship is healthy, and doing all in our power to support that end, we will necessarily have our needs met. If they weren't being met, the relationship would suffer. In sum, serve the one (relationship), serve all (parties AND relationship). I would like to think that that could be a good way to start looking at working together in the Congress and Senate. Health care reform and everything else will benefit as a consequence.

Stephen R. Covey, writing in 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, listed as habit #2 "Begin with the End in Mind". Would that the Senate and Congress would do the same.

§ What's the end? Reform.

§ What are the hallmarks of such reform? Lower cost, continued high quality care, access for more (if not all), equity in health care delivery (no urban/rural divide; no wealthy/poor divide; no racial divide), must not derail overall national economic well-being (deficit neutral).

§ How do we get there? Working together.

Surely, these are things on which both parties can agree? If they aren't then we have really big problems that have more to do with obstinacy than they have to do with policy.

Having mapped out the broad goals of the plan and having understood that we can only get to the end together, could we not then get down to brass tacks and figure out ways, acceptable to both sides for bringing each of these pillars to life? What troubles me most, is the continued insistence on a Republican way vs. a Democratic way. Book ends. Your way, My way. Folks, there is only one way: it's the way that serves the needs of people already in need, and that best protects the needs of those who may be in need tomorrow.

I've never thought that insurance was anyone's inalienable right, but in a society where you could easily be left to die because you don't have it, I (we all) may need to reconsider that notion. How can this nation claim to adhere to the principle of "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", if 'living' is predicated on having insurance which can be withheld by a nameless third party? Then clearly, we are not all entitled to life. Forget liberty and the pursuit of happiness altogether. Once you’ve been denied ‘life’ clearly the rest is just talk.

The bottom line is that we must take the approach that there are no throwaway people. The people who are in crisis now because of health travails are neither useless nor are they unimportant. It frightens me that so often when I hear people speak, there is a subtle undercurrent of disdain for these 'others' who had the misfortune to fall ill. We need to be clear that there are no Children of a Lesser God here. We all matter, we all deserve a chance to live. That’s what health reform is about....Life and Death. To make it about anything else is to obfuscate the underlying truth. The minute politicians take their eyes off that prize - life - we’re all dead, some of us sooner than others.