Tin Shop Tartan - Randolph County Alabama's Own Snarky and Surly Scot Gets All Native

Blogging from the suburbs of the Tin Shop community, Captain Plaid brings Progressivism, and a share of Quixotic angst, to the ridges and hollows of Randolph County, Alabama. Hardly a booster yet rooted here enough to fight, Plaidsters can perhaps find like cause in trying to build local solutions to global concerns. Education, environment, economy, entertainment, engagement ... Trust the Tartan!

Friday, March 24, 2006

Our Health Care Crisis in Randolph and ...

Our local health care concerns will, if at all, really be only solved at the national level. We can and should work here but the complicated problem of assuring quality health care for all Americans can truly only be handled fully in DC.

We must elect representatives that will insist on meeting their constituents’ needs rather than that of Big Pharma and Big Insurance and Big Health Care. If they have not at least somewhat of a "Progressive philosophy" then they will simply follow the disaster that "wing nut Conservatism" has helped bring to our nation. If our politicians seeking or wanting to remain in office really believe "government is the problem" and that raw "market forces need to be allowed to work their magic" then please just say so. Then perhaps you could give me or another Progressive a chance to debate you. You can shill taking points and we'll talk facts and philosophy and vision and economics and ...!

Rural America faces special concerns but solutions for all of America can certainly apply here and the conservative solution will simply not work in our current setting. You really know it doesn't. Medicare and Medicaid are not going away. Nor is the New Deal. Get over it! Let's go for another approach that recognizes unfettered markets and profits for a few are not always the solution. Progressive planning can and will work. Even if it is not perfect then almost any neutral group or person knows, once the facts are examined, that things will be certainly improved radically by better and smarter and more just policies.

Organizations like the Center for American Progress make a strong argument that smart universal health coverage can work. They suggest

America’s health care system needs real reform. With American workers, businesses and health care providers as partners in the solution, we can provide affordable health coverage for all Americans within the current system. With real reform, the nation will be better off. Affordable health coverage provides a minimal level of economic security for all Americans, and allows them to save for retirement, plan for their children’s education, or buy a home. Affordable health coverage strengthens American businesses, improves individual health, and lowers health care costs for everyone.

Real reform must:

  • Provide affordable coverage for all Americans
  • Maintain choice of providers and health plans
  • Control health care costs
  • Make prevention a national priority
A Single Payer Health Care System is supported by groups as diverse as the United Methodist Church and the United Steelworkers Union and National Organization of Women and ... at Health Care Now. Several umbrella organizations are trying to move the debate forward such as Universal Health Care Action Network made up of several faith-based plus legal and medical and … groups. Americans For Health Care is a project of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) that merits a visit.

The Making Health Care Work for All Campaign supports the Institute of Medicine's principles for health care reform:

  • Health care coverage should be universal.
  • Health care coverage should be continuous.
  • Health care coverage should be affordable to individuals and families.
  • The health insurance strategy should be affordable and sustainable to society.
  • Health care coverage should enhance health and well-being by promoting access to high-quality care that is effective, efficient, safe, timely, patient-centered, and equitable.
Our government established the Citizens' Health Care Working Group in 2003 . This group has been charged with presenting recommendations in the very near future. They have been and are presently holding meetings yet the nearest appear to be over in Mississippi. We could however even hold our own meeting locally with some resources provided by this group.

While the Bu$hCo tax cuts and his ReThuglican cabal’s war of choice in Iraq and Katrina and … have stretched the budget rather thin, the fact is that universal health care and an emphasis on prevention and accessible care is really smart money. Plus it is simply the right thing for our nation. And then we can actually solve education with a dash away from the Conservative chaos. And the environment needs Progressivism. And the economy must start working for middle class and poor Americans again. We could begin to pay down our debt and develop a wise energy policy. And then we could ...

Peace ... or War!