HEALTH CARE STATUS #XYZ

Time to break away from local politics to the national scene, especially the furor over the health care reformation.

Although there is no bill up for vote at this moment , only one house version of over 1000 pages and two Senate versions that have to be amalgamated, the air is full of hot and heavy verbiage.

Both the proponents an antagonists are using every possible trick in the book from deliberate misrepresentation of what is in the expects final bill based on the House version to staging virulent protest speakers at the "town meetings.'On this issue we are seeing a repetition of the protests shown by the "downtrodden Sudetens, and other Germans in Hitler's rise to power, and in this age by the government in Iran and other dictatorships. Staged and impressive when the gullible takes them at face value.

I believe that if all the people who have read the entire House Bill and the two Senate versions could meet in one place, a pin head would be large enough to accommodate them.

Therefore in most cases they are focusing and often twisting sentences or paragraphs out of context to meet their own arguments.

There is no question that various interests wish to defeat any change in care. The most prominent one is of course the Insurance Industry, who do stand to lose millions ney billions of dollars if there is a less costly government sponsored plan with similar benefits on the table.

The industry's dire warning that the fed's plan will be mandatory is as far as I can gather from reading other sources not a valid one. However, there have been certain phrases, some since removed that would have that effect. There is a danger that certain zealots like Rep Pete. Stark of California would put the entire health care system under federal control.

Not only would that be an economic disaster but in my opinion would lead to a rapid collapse of all health care. Rules, regulations, misinterpretations of regulations, power hungry low level officials, threats of criminal action, graft would be the immediate consequence of such an action. I am not painting a scare scene but expressing my intuition from decades of experience with state and federal agencies including the army as well as the insurance industry.

My only advice at this moment is not to listen to the loud mouths on TV, or those who claim to know the answers, especially those who are representing vested interests. How can we judge what will be good for us. Try reading the media which will reproduce some of the pertinent issues in print and read the commentaries about these issues. Although the New York Times despite its claim of neutrality it has been very open on this subject and its news reports with side bars has been the best source that I can find. Its OPED columnists however are no more that outlets of the extreme right or the radical left on this issue. You may disagree with me on that statement, but I have yet to read one that seemed unbiased.

There is one popular issue at present that I will comment on ; that is the so called "death provision" in the House bill. The alarmist have taken the requirement for a "living will", and the right to request no extraordinary measures be taken to maintain "life" as well as the delegation of authority in case of incapacity to mean that treatment will be automatically stopped on some one else's order. This includes the so called provision for consultation for end of life issues which has been falsely interpreted as instructions for euthanasia.

As a physician I too often saw life being maintained by artificial means because some family member, often one who was never around prior to the episode, had feelings of guilt and would not want to let go. This is truly an ethical question which too often can become a legal one, and resources are often expended uselessly for a long period of time.

The living will gives the individual the right to express his own desires not become the victim of someone else's wishes. It works two ways. Let us not forget. " There is a time to be born, a time to live, and a time to die"

Other thoughts will follow. We need some change but I am against a system that is run by a government bureaucracy. Give uncontrolled authority to a government means giving power, and giving unrestricted power corrupts. WE have no further to look then in this state and county (not health care per se)