Same Old --- Same Old

I have been listening and looking for substantive improvements in our health care system coming from Washington, but none have been forthcoming. Lots of talk from President Obama about cutting the costs of health care (health care is approaching 20% of the GDP because our economy stinks - it's the old specious "denominator" problem). Lots of speculation in the New York Times and elsewhere about how insurers, those "guardians of all improvement in the health care system," will be protected from competition by the government, other insurers, and providers. Meanwhile, the focus on profits for insurers and cutting the cost of services for the public makes me wonder who will be the victims.

Will it be children, who have no voting rights and therefore only very limited political power whom we have proportionately decapitalized? Will it be the elderly, who do vote, but with a cost-benefit analysis approach don't add much to the GDP and make it hard for economists to justify spending a lot of money for each year of life which is added (or to relieve pain and suffering which is difficult to value). Will it be the unemployed and uninsured who will simply be a drain on the Treasury, and from one party's political perspective, may not be worthy enough to justify health care expenditures for them. Will it be the working middle class, who seem no longer important enough politically to justify their getting the "middle class tax break" that Obama promised pre-election? Will it be armed forces personnel, who, once political furor over Iraq simmers down, will nurse their injuries in understaffed and underfunded back wards of VA and inaccessible facilities? Will it be the undocumented immigrants who now fill our emergency departments? Will it be the prisoners in our federal/state/local prisons and jails?

Folks, competent health care will be available to the same people who now get what they want: individuals who are wealthy, who are well-connected politically, make substantial contributions (directly or through PACS or otherwise) to politically powerful people/organizations and their connections and employ lobbyists who have access to the politically powerful and their rule makers. (Google the search terms "political donation insurer".) And, like AIG and the financial sector, they will take care of each other. And the children, elderly, working middle class, injured and uninjured veterans, immigrants and prisoners - "sorry - but we have to cut costs."

And if you (or a member of your family) are really sick and need expensive testing, treatment, care, pharmaceuticals, and technology, where do you think you or your family member will be prioritized in cutting health care costs?