Little Will Happen with Healthcare Reform

Listening to some opponents of reform you will hear deep anger, fear, distrust of government (and by extension their neighbors) and suspicion that there is a hidden agenda. Such a pool, and it is a significant pool, is fertile ground for people to be gullible and quickly accept created mythical claims. There is a host of mythical claims being made around proposed health care reform.

Here is a story about some of those claims.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090824/sc_livescience/majorityofamericansbelievehealthcarereformmyths

I am not surprised by the polls. As you will recall, though I am a fan of healthcare reform and a public system I anticipate that reform efforts to fail. Something will get passed, but a year or two later most people will realize that the changes were cosmetic and made not real differences. Regardless of the claims of insurance and health care executives are making, they are not interested in serious reform. Their eyes are upon the dollar and trying to keep the gravy train going a little longer. They have the same attitude of financial services and insurance executives who created, marketed sub-prime loans that nearly brought the financial industry into total ruin….keep the train going, allow us to make as much as possible hoping that the collapse we see coming will not happen.

Two of the most powerful motivators are fear and greed. Both those emotions are at play in the healthcare debate.

What is interesting is that the views of those who have been to other developed countries, and intentionally listened to those citizens and understood the dynamics of their what is happening in those countries, tend to see the value and importance of healthcare reform. Interacting, listening, learning and grasping what is happening elsewhere changes a person’s worldview and impacts their views. To hear the those against healthcare reform, the Canadian healthcare system is a backwoods system with ancient hospitals thinly staffed by second-rate healthcare providers.

Though Americans may travel widely in their own country, and take quick little vacations to a foreign resort, Americans are for the most part insular in their worldview. Traveling outside your own country does not give you a worldview when you go to a resort filled with fellow Americans, or travel in tour groups and do not really interact with those from other countries. Such individuals continue to view their own nation as being superior and as not needing to learn from others. They have bought into the political mantra of superiority, enlightenment and that other societies are falling apart and less vigorous than American society.

While I hope I am wrong, the myths will continue to hold sway and be proclaimed as truth. There will be not political inertia to bring forth reform. Meaningful healthcare will not happen until about half of the middle class is without adequate healthcare…a day that may be as near as twelve to fifteen years.