Friday, September 25, 2009

Health Care Reform: Is it all about costs?

There is one mystery - yea-ea-eah - I just can't express:
To give your more, to receive your less.
Bob Marley

The conversation about health care reform has lead all of us to ask the question: how much will this cost? It is a very important question and one that has to be addressed every step of the way. What this leads one to think is that the concern that opponents have is purely financial.

On the other hand, supporters of health insurance reform, especially those who are supportive of a public option or something resembling universal coverage, speak about the cost of doing nothing or less than the creation of a public option.

So, the question is: Is Healthcare Reform all about Cost?

My answer: Yes, healthcare reform is all about cost.

Now, there is an angle that both those who are worried about cost on the anti-reform side (in the forms being presented currently) and those who are concerned on the pro-reform side have to consider. Fundamentally, in life and in business, you cannot get something for nothing. Or as my hero, Robert Nesta Marley asks: "How can you ever give your more to receive your less?"

Fact is that you cannot, not now, not ever. In fact, I could go as far as stating that the problems that we are experiencing in the current economy have been created based on a "give your less to receive your more" mind-set.

In its course, some have benefited from the exploitation of this anti-principle. However, the correction that is necessary in a universe based on the natural laws of cause and effect always runs its course. If something is out of balance, correction of the imbalance will occur. It doesn't matter how long it is delayed, it will eventually move back to the even mark.

Without a doubt we are in a mode of correction. For such a long time whether it was during the dotcom era when "money was for nothing, and. . ." (you know how the rest of that line from Dire Straits went) or the so-called real estate boom (or was it a cover for the dotcom bust) and now where are we?

Over and over, we have created situations that have the inevitable consequence of suffering. Yet, because we think that giving our less and receiving our more is possible, we continue in this cycle, and then we complain.

We blame this corporation, and this bank, and this president, and that billionaire, and that job, etc. In many cases, the blame is understandable. There have been many companies and wealthy people that have exploited systems and people to get more for less time after time. This I do believe.

What about now? What about health insurance reform? Now our focus returns to the focus on the individual without regard to other humans. Have we truly learned anything about this paradigm? Millions of people have been so very much focused on their financial well-being/abundance that they choose to disregard the well-being of others. In fact, they have created a body of rhetoric that actually classifies their self-concern as patriotic, American, capitalist. They are framing healthcare reform as a threat to their way of life, our freedoms.

So, healthcare reform is all about cost, but it is not all about MONEY!

Cost transcends dollar and sense. A lack of compassion costs society much more than a few dollars. On a fundamental level it erodes the foundation of who we are as a nation. It compromises what makes one human; and in the final analysis, especially in the times we are in now, determines who we choose to be as a United (or not so United) States of America.

We are at a crossroads in the direction we want our country to go. It has little to do with health reform, its costs, or its outcomes. However, it is absolutely reflective of the tenor of the conversation and the desire we have to uplift humanity vs. simply find ways to protect what we (in a very short-sighted understanding) think serves one's individual interests.

Healthcare reform is all about costs, yes. Yet, we must consider all dimensions of what costs translate into--all are attached to our pocketbooks--All are attached to our destiny.

Make it a great day!