Michael Fjetland: America on Health Care -- Half Smart, Half Crazy

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Michael Fjetland

As I watched the health care debate I realized that America has a bipolar condition. We are half smart and half crazy at the same time.

America's health care system ranks 37th in the world, yet I saw people who looked like walking heart attacks -- whose insurance companies will probably drop them for pre-existing conditions right after the bill fails -- railing against changing the system to prevent that type of thing from happening. What happened to America being No. 1 instead of insisting on hanging at 37?

Truth has been a casualty in this non-debate shouting match. No one mentions that it was a Republican Senator from Georgia, Johnny Isakson, who submitted the language being mislabeled as Obama's "Death Panel." (Article: Sen. Johnny Isakson Says Palin's Death Panel' Talk Is Nuts). Iowa's Sen. Grassley repeated that misrepresentation as if it was the President's idea instead of a Senate Republican who proposed it. That isn't fair or honest to the American public.

We can't have an honest debate when truth is distorted. Even the British are mad that their system is being criticized by people in America trying to use it as an example of bad government. The famous physicist Stephen Hawking was cited as an example by opponents of health care reform to say he would not have been allowed to live under a government plan. Hawking disputes that. He says it was because of Britain's NHS that he is alive today. "At least our British system doesn't deny you health care because you don't have money like yours in the U.S. does" sums up the British attitude.

Even the conservative British candidate for Prime Minister, David Cameron, and those who are critical of Britain's NHS still support it and think it is far better than our American system that puts profit above health care and our ability to pay.

As one man said on the radio: "Health care companies are not supposed to be focused on their clients needs; their main concern must be their shareholders." That sums it up -- their focus is profits, not your getting preventive care or care for a pre-existing condition.

We need an honest debate based on facts not misrepresentations and falsehoods. It is as if America has a split personality between those seeking progress with reforms to get us beyond "No. 37" and those who seem to act like Ayatollahs that use dogma and fear of change to rule.

That is what Iran's leadership is doing today -- using distortions to hold on to power. The problem is not the reformers, but the conservatives who want things to remain the same even when it is leaving out the bottom 50% of America. Since when does America turn a blind eye to the bottom half of our country?

To improve from No. 37, we need to be smarter and less crazy.

Michael Fjetland
Global American Series