THINK WE CAN .com

In my last two columns (see www.Chronicleonline.com), I attempted to point out that health care reform is the single most critical issue facing the U.S.  This column will attempt to show that reforming this industry, though requiring a long-term struggle, is something we can accomplish if we do it correctly.

If we can believe the three most salient facts unearthed during my extensive research on this matter (see “Health Care Reform” at www.ThinkWeCan.com), our course of action becomes crystal clear.

First, we know that our health care industry--controlled by an alliance of big business, their lobbyists and a majority of our politicians--will soon consume one fourth of our entire economy.  This week the Kaiser Family Foundation reported that an average U.S. family’s health insurance premiums will exceed $30,000.00 by 2019.  That will produce economic chaos, sending the U.S. spiraling down into another deep recession, or worse.

Second, we now know that fully half of all dollars spent on U.S. health care is stolen or wasted—about 1.3 trillion dollars a year and growing exponentially.

Third, we can deduce from the first two facts that, from the recovery of even a portion of those stolen or wasted dollars, we can design and fund the finest health care system in the world.  Every single American can have excellent coverage, even the poorest of our children, and that is precisely as it should be in the most lavishly rich nation on earth.

U.S. health care reform is simple in concept.  We will recover our stolen money only by first determining who is stealing it.  The first step is to structure a computer system that will track every dollar spent on our health care.

Only then will we understand why some doctors’ malpractice premiums are a quarter of a million dollars a year; why our medical community will order 110 million cat scans in 2010; why so many millions of our children have been prescribed mood-altering drugs; why our health care system prefers drugs over preventative medicine and proper diet; why a single Tylenol tablet costs $69.00 at a hospital; why we allow some insurance CEOs to earn 200 million dollars a year;  why those same CEOs order their companies to deny as many claims as possible; why a massive number of orphans, foster children and babies are placed on adult, anti-psychotic drugs; why some professors of psychiatry are receiving millions of dollars of under-the-table cash from our pharmaceutical industry; why half our states are suing the pharmaceutical industry; why tens of thousands of our battle-scarred veterans, suffering from post-traumatic-stress-syndrome, will soon be homeless and without proper health care.

The above facts are hard to believe but all too true, and a fierce indictment against U.S. health care.  While it should be stated again that the majority of our health care workers are fine, decent people, we must catch and stop the bad guys in this industry because it cannot police itself, period.

Once we activate our computer system and start to ferret out the thieves, incompetents and wastrels, we may then begin the process of modifying our health care industry.  Of course, with almost one fifth of our economy involved, we must be cautious and patient in our methods.

But we must start the process as soon as possible; it will take a number of years to reform this industry.  We must ignore the baloney TV advertisements asking for more time to structure health care reform. They are promoted for the most part by the very businesses that have caused the problem. They had 40 years to mend their ways—their jig is up.

We must regain control of our health care and restructure the industry so that never again can common thieves amass enormous fortunes through the pain and suffering of millions of our fellow citizens.  We can call our reform methods a co-operative, a public option or a double-clutching, e-flat shake-up--whatever it takes to stop the theft.

At three times the cost of U.S. national defense, U.S. health care should be managed and controlled as a national priority, not some massive horn of plenty for every slick huckster who stumbles upon it.  And there are thousands of such characters working us over this very minute.

Our health care system must be structured in such a way that co-ops of our best, local doctors dictate treatment protocols, with close oversight by trusted leadership.  Our computer system will not only monitor all monies being spent on health care, but will show us what the system is doing right, so that we may expand on those things.

It is immoral and stupid to continue standing idly by as some of the greediest individuals on earth strip a trillion dollars a year from our economy.  The very heart and soul of America hangs in the balance.

U.S. health care reform is the seminal principle of the United States.