Bill Moyers On Health Care Reform
Last Friday night Bill Moyers had what I would consider to be the best look at health care in the United States ever put together by the media. What a surprise. Bill Moyers always represents journalistic excellence and integrity.
Those who argue health care in America is perfectly fine are ideologues, liars or are confusing their personal experience with the efficacy of the system in general. How can an environment exist in this country where taxpayers have either no health care or terrible health insurance while public servants, whose salaries we pay, have the best health care in the world? It's completely morally bankrupt that any politician would ever let this type of crisis develop in the first place. Either I should have the same health care afforded to Congress or Congress should have to buy the same shit-for-health-insurance I have. That being a plan I live in fear of being pulled out from under me in some catastrophic illness when some pinheaded insurance idgit finds a technicality on page 7,321 of my health insurance contract. The system is broken and new human tragedies develop daily because of it.
I support the President's admirable call to reform. What I don't support is politicization of the process. A politicization driven primarily by profit and not by a desire to serve society. It should be obvious neither the President nor any elected representative in Congress has the knowledge necessary to even frame the health care problems completely and accurately. I don't care if we elected the smartest people in the world, politicians are not health care experts. And, we clearly haven't elected the smartest people in the world so we can throw that out the window. This whining by partisan ideologues who simply want society to fall in line and support or reject a particular ideological message on either side of the debate are even more uninformed and health care illiterate than the political ideologies they support. And most clearly have no idea how to run a business. Regardless of what any ideologues may desire, health care should and will remain a business.
There are dozens of major problems with health care. And that means there are dozens of solutions. Ramrodding what is basically the existing system through a national health care bill is not a solution for anyone other than politicians being greased by special interests who clearly do not care about a superior solution embracing the common good. If they did, they wouldn't be greasing politicians.
We wrote that the overhaul of health care needs to be viewed as business process re-engineering. And that subject matter experts need to drive the transformation process. A process which should involve benchmarking as well.
What makes Moyer's look at health care so unique is that he has in fact done what we advocate. He has assembled business transformation experts within the health care field. These are researchers and doctors who have spent their lives studying health care delivery and how to re-engineer the process. And they have a staggering amount of research and statistics behind them. Yet these voices are being completely drowned out by the politicization of the process. One example is that these experts have compiled thirty years of health care data showing one in every three dollars spent on health care is wasted. An amount they admit seems staggering or difficult to comprehend but is indeed backed by quantified research. If this is any where near accurate, we have found every dollar needed to provide health care for every American simply by solving a small fraction of this one problem. And how might the system be transformed if the entire process was scrutinized and re-engineered? This doesn't need to happen by tomorrow. Roll changes out in phases. Until the who process is reformed, fix the issue of pre-existing conditions and allow citizens to buy into a government plan.
If you really care about the health care debate, I would encourage you to watch the Moyers' special. It reframes the issues into one of reason. Of solving specific problems to improve the lives of Americans and the improve the delivery of health care in this country. In the end, isn't this really what we should care about?
You should be taken to the August 28th show. The show is linked as two videos - Money-Driven Medicine Part 1 & 2.
Those who argue health care in America is perfectly fine are ideologues, liars or are confusing their personal experience with the efficacy of the system in general. How can an environment exist in this country where taxpayers have either no health care or terrible health insurance while public servants, whose salaries we pay, have the best health care in the world? It's completely morally bankrupt that any politician would ever let this type of crisis develop in the first place. Either I should have the same health care afforded to Congress or Congress should have to buy the same shit-for-health-insurance I have. That being a plan I live in fear of being pulled out from under me in some catastrophic illness when some pinheaded insurance idgit finds a technicality on page 7,321 of my health insurance contract. The system is broken and new human tragedies develop daily because of it.
I support the President's admirable call to reform. What I don't support is politicization of the process. A politicization driven primarily by profit and not by a desire to serve society. It should be obvious neither the President nor any elected representative in Congress has the knowledge necessary to even frame the health care problems completely and accurately. I don't care if we elected the smartest people in the world, politicians are not health care experts. And, we clearly haven't elected the smartest people in the world so we can throw that out the window. This whining by partisan ideologues who simply want society to fall in line and support or reject a particular ideological message on either side of the debate are even more uninformed and health care illiterate than the political ideologies they support. And most clearly have no idea how to run a business. Regardless of what any ideologues may desire, health care should and will remain a business.
There are dozens of major problems with health care. And that means there are dozens of solutions. Ramrodding what is basically the existing system through a national health care bill is not a solution for anyone other than politicians being greased by special interests who clearly do not care about a superior solution embracing the common good. If they did, they wouldn't be greasing politicians.
We wrote that the overhaul of health care needs to be viewed as business process re-engineering. And that subject matter experts need to drive the transformation process. A process which should involve benchmarking as well.
What makes Moyer's look at health care so unique is that he has in fact done what we advocate. He has assembled business transformation experts within the health care field. These are researchers and doctors who have spent their lives studying health care delivery and how to re-engineer the process. And they have a staggering amount of research and statistics behind them. Yet these voices are being completely drowned out by the politicization of the process. One example is that these experts have compiled thirty years of health care data showing one in every three dollars spent on health care is wasted. An amount they admit seems staggering or difficult to comprehend but is indeed backed by quantified research. If this is any where near accurate, we have found every dollar needed to provide health care for every American simply by solving a small fraction of this one problem. And how might the system be transformed if the entire process was scrutinized and re-engineered? This doesn't need to happen by tomorrow. Roll changes out in phases. Until the who process is reformed, fix the issue of pre-existing conditions and allow citizens to buy into a government plan.
If you really care about the health care debate, I would encourage you to watch the Moyers' special. It reframes the issues into one of reason. Of solving specific problems to improve the lives of Americans and the improve the delivery of health care in this country. In the end, isn't this really what we should care about?
You should be taken to the August 28th show. The show is linked as two videos - Money-Driven Medicine Part 1 & 2.
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