It’s hard to feel someone else’s pain. It doesn’t matter what political party or economic system you ascribe to, it’s just human nature to be unsympathetic if you don’t understand the pain someone else is experiencing. What does this have to do with health care reform in the U.S.?
Who in this country has the best, most comprehensive, most generous health care insurance? The answer is federal employees, including members of Congress. These are people who never suffer insecurity about getting the best health care for themselves and their families. I believe this is a key factor reducing the motivation of Congress to change our health care system. Likewise in our country, the well off are still getting the best health care available. In my experience, these are the people who are least sympathetic to healthcare reform.
It is being said that the President was “Un-American” in the way he achieved his goal of health care reform. I think it is Un-American to shrug in the face of 30 million uninsured citizens, or to accept a system where the companies offering health insurance are making billions of dollars in profit while denying coverage to those who need it the most.
As a physician I am sitting at ground zero in regards to the changes in healthcare just set into motion. I have not yet been able to analyze how these changes will effect the way I practice medicine, but I still applaud the great effort by our leaders to fix a healthcare system which is clearly broken.
Gary Pepper, M.D. , Editor-in-Chief, metabolism.com
