At Stake

I've neglected the news for the past few days. I was relishing an unexpected convergence of all my loved ones...my children, their mates, and my grandchildren...in my own den, gathered around my warm fireplace. They had come from across the country, were headed to various other points, and their being here at the same time was something we could not have pulled off by planning. It was a miracle in a year that's been short on miracles. Everyone who represents my stake in the future was right here within reach of a hug.

On the first day of the visit, just moments after I'd printed out a salmon dip recipe, I noticed that my laptop was clucking to me from across the kitchen...bad. My son the genius prescribed a new hard drive, which he was glad to pick up and install during the visit...good. Our middle school grandson commandeered our only other internet option, the desktop, for its flight simulator hardware and its joystick. No one thought of newspapers or television. I was delirious with connection and perfectly happy to be uncoupled from the news of the Senate's healthcare bill and the talks in Copenhagen. Bad time to be out of the loop, but you can't argue with miracles.

So I was unprepared when a cursory check of my blogroll, executed on the pc between simulated emmelmans, turned up an alarming post from my friend at Self Sufficient Steward, and I was reminded of the Senate's sorry slog toward healthcare reform. (I'll wait right here, while you go check out that link. It's that important.) I'd had my head in the clouds and this was a hard landing. It's nothing short of healthcare porn. I had no idea that the American Medical Association was engaging in a three-way with the Chamber of Commerce and Hooters to buy support for their healthcare agenda. Actually, it's more like an orgy; the AMA's website presents a cooperative that includes some of the most trusted sectors of the country, with some strange couplings made suddenly possible:

"Organizations participating in the Health Reform Dialogue include: AARP, Advanced Medical Technology Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American College of Physicians, American Hospital Association, American Medical Association, American Nurses Association, American Public Health Association, Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, Business Roundtable, Catholic Health Association of the United States, Families USA, Federation of American Hospitals, Healthcare Leadership Council, National Federation of Independent Business, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce."

And their agenda sounds so good:

Expanding health care coverage options to extend insurance to the 46 million Americans who are uninsured; reducing the growth of health care costs by increasing value for American health care consumers. Key reforms include implementing Medicare payment reforms, improving billing efficiencies, closing gaps in quality and outcomes; and fostering an environment in which prevention, wellness and primary care – not just diagnosis and treatment – are the cornerstones of high-quality care, and more

How did these distinguished entities, with their high-minded goals, wind up fiddling with the likes of a chicken wing franchise while Rome burns?


 I know a little, a very little, about all the stakeholders in this confederacy, at least at a local and anecdotal level.  I worked in the medical world as something called an AHP, an allied health professional.  I read AARP, The Magazine. I buy health insurance for a loved one from BC/BS, and I've billed them in the past as a provider of care. Hooters was born right here in our area and the daughters of many area doctors got their first jobs there.  I guess I shouldn't be too surprised at the medical community pooling its power with some former opponents (health insurance agencies) to wrestle some control over what's coming at them: nothing less than total change, unless they can stop it. 


Still, it burns me up, it shames me red, to see them stoop so low as to use a  Hooter's gift card to rope folks into their lobbying effort.  It looks desperate, seedy, and beneath every player except Hooters...a restaurant chain that offers tanning beds and a high-fat in-house meal plan, but no  health insurance, to its hourly Hooters Girls (although one report thought the hourly employees were covered; I did a little local research and found that insurance benefits are for full-time management).  


I made the mistake of listening to NPR today, too, in my effort to responsibly reconnect with the world outside my door through my favorite radio channel. I heard a snippet of Al Gore's speech yesterday in Copenhagen:

“If at some future date, the next generation faces the prospect of living in a world with steadily deteriorating prospects and no chance to reclaim the glories of this beautiful earth that we have enjoyed — if they look back at Copenhagen and ask, “Why didn’t you act? Why did you let this process fall into paralysis, and neither succeed or fail but become a symbol of futility? What were the arguments again? You didn’t realize that we were at stake?”

It's hard to believe there are still people who refuse to accept global warming as scientific fact. Or who refuse to believe that medical providers will eventually accept an entirely different service and pay structure. Or who refuse to believe that the Baby Boom generation will have to make some big sacrifices in its last years on every front from medical treatment to the size of its carbon footprint, no matter how unattractively, how selfishly, we struggle against it.  There are those who are convinced that change can be stopped. You can smell the fear, the stink of singed hopes and plans up in smoke.

I am scared, too.  I'm afraid to entirely lose my faith in humanity's core worth.  I'm frightened of the ugliness and the ignorance.  I don't know about you, but I know exactly who is at stake at this moment.  They were gathered around my warm fire just yesterday.