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Health problem: Congress is bipolar

Beloit Daily News - 7/1/2017

Health issues could be fixed if only they would listen to each other.

LET'S GET THIS PART of the argument settled way up-front.

Statistics show about 44 million Americans are covered by the Medicare program. Another 75 million Americans are covered under Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Some 9 million Americans get their healthcare through the Veterans Health Administration.

That's about 163 million Americans on government-provided healthcare programs. With around 325 million of us living in America these days, that's a rate of about 50 percent receiving those benefits.

And that doesn't begin to count the millions of government employees - and politicians - who receive taxpayer-subsidized health insurance where they work.

So laugh off that nonsense about Americans wanting government out of their healthcare. Just try taking Medicare away from a senior citizen.

THUS, ALL THIS RAW DEBATE, now droning on nearly a decade, over the so-called Obamacare plan and the House and Senate variations on what could be called Trumpcare, is really about fewer than half of us in this country.

Most of those receive their health insurance through employers. Others, such as the self-employed, are in the individual insurance market. And several millions are still uninsured, running up costs at (by the way, subsidized) community clinics or adding to unreimbursed burdens through expensive emergency room visits.

People in need do not go without healthcare availability. For example, if Beloit paramedics get a call to help an uninsured person they roll the ambulance, provide care and transport as necessary to the hospital. There, physicians provide treatment. Where payment will come from is considered later. Often, these providers just wind up eating the costs. That, by the way, drives up the need for subsidies and puts upward pressure on both healthcare costs and insurance premiums for everybody else.

HERE'S THE SHAME. It is absurdly obvious to anybody that the question of how America provides healthcare impacts each and every person living within the borders of this great nation.

Yet Democrats, in passing Obamacare, relied strictly on their then-majorities in both houses of Congress to ram through a law opposed by everybody on the other side.

And now, in attempting to craft and pass Trumpcare, Republicans retreated behind closed doors and have relied only on their party to push forward.

When Obamacare was passed Democrats said Republicans showed no interest whatsoever in working with them to craft a better law.

Now, as Republicans try to pass Trumpcare, Democrats are returning the favor by acting only with blocking actions.

In the mental health field, bipolar is considered a serious disease.

Well, Congress is bipolar. And it's a serious disease that is threatening the vitality of America.

THINK ABOUT THIS. When Obamacare passed, did that end the argument? So why should anyone believe if Trumpcare passes, that will end the argument? Next time Democrats are running things - and they will, politics is a cycle - rest assured they'll move to dump whatever Republicans do now and circle back toward their own priorities.

This is insane. The political parties are tampering with matters important for each and every person. Yet they do so from within an intellectual echo chamber, as if all other considerations are non-existent.

Here's our view. America's healthcare system is a lot less broken than its political system.

On an issue of this magnitude and applicability to all people, the two political parties' inability even to rationally discuss possibilities and seek common ground with civility and overall interests in mind should be Exhibit A in evidence of our broken system of governance.

This is fixable, but not if rigid ideologues dismiss out of hand the virtues of cooperation. If all-or-nothing continues to be the strategy of choice for both political factions, there will be no durable solutions.