REFLECTIONS

A coworker recently engaged me in a painful “discussion” about health care. This man is actually convinced that the current state of health care in America is so horrible, people are leaving America to get better health care in Mexico and Cuba.

Now, however flawed and inaccurate the details, I can understand why some people feel sorry for the less-fortunate in our society… aching that some children can’t afford to go to the doctor… that some pregnant mother isn’t getting the pre-natal care she needs… that some elderly are dying of easily curable diseases. But, come on! Mexico!? Seriously! Is this a real epidemic? Are there floods of people slipping over the border to get appendectomies? Driving down to Tijuana to get teeth extracted? Can anyone give me some details about this phenomenon? Really. I want to know.

How is it that so many people in the US have become convinced that the only way to fix the “failing” health care industry in America, is by turning over the keys to the manager of Amtrak?

Now listen… I don’t deny that there are imperfections in the US health care system. That’s a funny constant about human institutions: there always seems to be some pesky imperfection nearby. But, before we go too far down this road of “overhauling our health care system”, let’s all spend a little time examining the perfections of the perfect health care systems in perfect Europe.

I have read numerous articles about the poor quality, the long waits, the deteriorating facilities, the underpaid (read: “demoralized”) professionals. Why are these stories not silencing the do-gooders that want to revolutionize the US health care system? (Must be the result of the ceaseless dilligence of our objective mainstream media.)

But, let’s talk serious here… just you and me. Since we are rational adults, we need to make some tough decisions about grown-up things. First, let’s frame the discussion in a proper light: Since humans have a hard time doing anything “perfect”, it would seem logical that the goal of health care reform should not be “perfection”. Instead, the goal should be “least imperfection”.

You don’t blow up your car because the cup-holder is in an inconvenient location. You don’t burn down your house because the dining room isn’t big enough for your family heirloom dining table.

You work with what you have, to make it work as well as you can.

To me, the first step to achieving the “least imperfect” health care system is to get the government out of the way, and let the Almight Dollar work its mojo.

A couple years ago, some family friends bought a widescreen plasma TV. They paid a good chunk of change for it. I was jealous, as any red-blooded American man should be. And, the dumb machine had to be repaired three times within the first three months of use. A major hassle, to say the least. It was all under warranty, fortunately for my friends. But, still. They paid a couple thousand dollars for a cutting-edge piece of technology, that, quite honestly, didn’t work very well.

And, through it all, the only thing I could say to these friends of mine is: thank you.

Because of these nobel folks, I will be able to afford one of those awesome TVs by the time my first-grader graduates from high school.

But, if it weren’t for the Almighty Dollar — my friends buying those luxurious techno-play-things, lining the pockets of the designers and manufacturers and investors, breeding envy deep within the marrow of my bones — there would never have been a wide-screen plasma TV in the first place.

No profit would have lured the investor. No capital for the manufacturer. No big-screen TV for the little man (i.e. me).

That, my dear, dear, American friend, is what happens when you let money work its mojo.

It may seem inhumane — offensive, insulting, unfair, attrocious ? — to allow a rich person to buy a drug treatment, or a procedure that a poor person can’t afford. But, without that rich person pumping his/her personal fortune into the stream of technological development, those drugs will never be invented… they’ll never be tested… they’ll never be approved… they’ll never lose their patent… they’ll never be mimicked by some knock-off B-rate pharmaceutical company in France… and they’ll never make it to the generic shelves of your local Walgreens.

That is a hard, hard truth. But, as we grown-ups understand, that is life on this planet.

Not perfect. Just a little less imperfect.