Sunday, July 12, 2009 | 2 a.m.
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There are many reasons to enjoy the news in this modern age of the Internet and wireless digital technology. They include the speed with which it is delivered and the multimedia aspects that are unavailable in print, on television and on radio platforms.
Another reason I am starting to enjoy this Web-based newspaper business is the democratization that takes place, the modern-day “letters to the editor” section that comes at the end of stories and opinions called “comments.”
Everybody has a comment, an opinion and a point of view and most people are not afraid to express them. And like everything else in this new media world, the use and exposition of the comments will evolve, hopefully to the point where their contribution to the debate far outweighs their distraction. I don’t believe, however, that we are quite there yet.
Take the health care debate, for example.
If you spend any time reading the comments that follow almost every story about President Barack Obama’s heath care efforts and those of Congress to craft legislation that will provide the opportunity for quality health care to all Americans, you will understand what I am talking about.
If you read the incessant name-calling that seems the hallmark of some commenters regarding not only stories but also those who respond and disagree, you will see that we have a way to go before the quality of the debate matches the quality of the issues in need of such input.
One theme that recently has dominated the readers’ debate on lasvegassun.com is whether health care for Americans is a right granted by the Constitution or a privilege that can be granted by the American people. Or not.
That kind of questioning is completely unnecessary and damages the effort to find a way to provide health care to those who can’t get it, more affordable prices for those who have it and better delivery to those who can afford it but can’t get it when the chips are down.
This does not have to be a constitutional debate. Besides, what makes some of our readers — or any other news organization’s readers for that matter — think they are experts on the U.S. Constitution? Supreme courts and constitutional scholars have been grappling with the meaning of the Constitution for two centuries and they still don’t have it right.
I think the real question is: What kind of America do we want to live in? When we answer that, we will know how to fix health care or whether to fix it at all.
Imagine you are walking down a street in your neighborhood when your neighbor — or a complete stranger — suddenly collapses, grabs his chest and cries out, “Please help me.”
The way I see it, you have just two choices. You can step over his crumpled, near lifeless form and continue on with your life, or you can try to help.
If you choose the former, you will deny everything that is sacred in America, including our religious and moral upbringing that says we should treat our neighbor as ourselves, and that we will be judged by how we treat the least among us. You will also be the kind of person who no one I know wants anything to do with.
If you choose the latter course, the one in which you try to help — give CPR, call 911, perform open heart surgery — there is a cost. That cost could include the paramedics, the ambulance, the emergency room, the doctors, the specialists and an incredible array of services and talent available in this country to save that person’s life and get him on the road to recovery.
Now assume that person is indigent. Someone will have to pay for all that lifesaving equipment and effort. Guess who?
The first question we must answer is what kind of country, what kind of Americans, what kind of human beings do we want to be? If we decide we want to be the kind of place where people who are ill are not ignored but are helped, then we must be prepared to pay for that decision. It is not about the rights and privileges of others, it is more selfish than that. It is about who we are as people.
I hope the answer is obvious. The next question is how we pay for it.
On that score I am not as clear, but I know there are many others who can figure it out. I also know that President Obama is right when he says we have to fix health care now or it will take us down.
Anyone who has ever run a business knows that one of the largest and most uncontrollable costs is the provision of health care. We also know that we have to provide that service because healthy workers are happy workers, and happy workers are productive workers, and productive workers — well, you know how that goes.
Those who are invested in the current system — the hospitals, the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical giants — will do and say just about anything to scare us out of our desire to fix the health care system. And they have millions and billions of reasons to fight for the status quo.
I wrote a few weeks ago that I have been studying this issue up close and personal for the past few months and what I have learned, so far, is that much of what we are told is just not true.
Take the biggest lie so far — that government can’t run a good health care delivery system.
M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, is world-renowned as one of the best, if not the best, place for people with cancer. Period. It is a superb center of excellence at which cancer outcomes continue to astound and to which almost every other cancer center in the world will refer their patients. The doctors are happy because they get paid very well, they get to do the research they want and they get to treat the kind of cases that continue to challenge their intellectual curiosity and fulfill the dreams they had when they went to medical school. Nurses, physician assistants, volunteers and support staff are equally cheerful because they, too, are well-paid, respected and fulfilled.
Most important, patients get the finest care and the kind of respect they need at a time when they are most vulnerable. Most people who go to M.D. Anderson with life-threatening cancer diagnoses live long and happy lives.
Here’s the incredible part. Here’s where all those know-it-alls and those who use scare tactics to secure their continued piece of a pie that long ago should have been changed to make us a healthier and wealthier country get their comeuppance.
M.D. Anderson is part of the University of Texas system. All those folks who deliver the finest health care, who make the decisions about the delivery of that care, who purchase and operate the equipment that helps them diagnose and treat, and who make the bottom line decisions that must be made to keep the center afloat, work for the university.
They work for the GOVERNMENT!
The government and government employees don’t have to be the problem. To be sure, there are real issues that need to be resolved and business models that need to be understood. But we shouldn’t let those who like things just the way they are scare us into believing that people who work for government can’t perform because they can and they do — every day.
That takes us back to the first question. What kind of country, what kind of Americans, what kind of human beings do we want to be?
Answer that question and change the dialogue. Health care reform will come shortly thereafter.
Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.
Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.
