Monday, November 23, 2009

SENATE HEALTH CARE REFORM DEBATE

It is more likely that Jon and Kate Gosselin will reunite and go off into the sunset as a happily married couple than it is that the varying personalities and constituencies of the various Senators will unite to pass any kind of meaningful health care reform bill. In other words, those of us who consider any of the bills presented so far to be disastrous will be the winners if nothing gets passed into infamy!

33% of the Senators are up for re-election in 2010. ALL of the members of the House of Representatives are up for re-election in 2010. The American public has spoken - loudly - and continues to so speak and at some point (probably after the first of the year) it is going to dawn on these clowns that - if they want to keep their jobs - they are going to have to be more thoughtful and more intelligent in their approach to reform. A good start would be tort reform. It is long overdue. That alone will cut health care costs significantly.

I cannot support anything that removes from me the opportunity to continue to consult the team of physicians who have gotten me through 3 serious health care crises during 2009. I have carefully scrutinized their bills and do not find them to be outrageous. I don't have any issues with my insurer either. So why would I want any kind of change? I'm not an idiot. What I do think is necessary is the tort reform and I am expressing that opinion based on a couple of years as a legal secretary in a personal injury defense law firm. Some of the lawsuits were just plain asinine and yet, the insurance companies had to pay to defend them. Just as one example, a woman with a sick baby case who had had gonnorrhea three times during her pregnancy and had smoked and had consumed alcohol AND drugs non-stop throughout that selfsame pregnancy. Her baby was born brain damaged and she had the effrontery to blame the doctor! Talk about brass balls! These are the kinds of baseless lawsuits that must be curtailed in order to reduce costs. People who have experienced genuine injury at the hands of careless physicians certainly should retain their right to seek redress, but people like the sick baby complainant described above - she should be incarcerated in solitary confinement for a lengthy period as her punishment for the egregious harm she deliberately and stupidly inflicted on her own child. Fair comment: I was born unable to bear children and thus have absolutely no patience with women whose ability to bear children is intact and who abuse their bodies or their offspring in some way!

1 comment:

Laura said...

FWIW, you'd have been a great mother!