Health Reform and You

Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.

Mark Twain (1835-1910), Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894)

When I say “You,” I mean “ You,”  the collective American.  There is no such a person, but here goes anyway.

You’re getting older.  You worry about your health, your blood pressure, your chances of getting heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.  You worry about paying your medical bills.

You worry about the health reform law, the Patient Protection and Affordability Act,  now called ObamaCare.  So  far, it hasn’t collectively protected you or made your health care more affordable.   You realize that may come, but when?  How much longer will you have to wait?

The law confuses you.   And it seems to confuse everybody else too. Maybe that’s why it’s so unpopular. If it takes 2700 pages to explain and 2000 pages of regulations to enforce, maybe that’s why you can’t understand it or fathom its consequences.

Why can’t we all agree what is the right thing to do that’s good for all of us in language that everybody understands?

Why can’t we have a law that preserves your freedom of choice of your doctor and your health plan? Why can’t we have a law that allows you  to preserve your way of life – to keep your old habits that got you here?  Why can’t we have a law that changes other people’s habits so outcomes are better and costs are lower for everybody, including you?

As George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), the old curmudgeon, said, “ You see things and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’” Maybe Shaw was on to something.  He lived be be 94.

 Tweet:   Americans may have unrealistic expectations of what Obamacare is supposed to accomplish for all Americans.