Healthcare

Healthcare

In 2006 I wrote in "ResoNation," that healthcare could very well contribute to the demise of General Motors. It didn't take a genius to make such a prediction. The signals are all around us in the form of skyrocketing costs; lack of a coherent national policy (not necessarily a national health plan); regulation that runs from lax to confused; massive cost increases with no explanation other than to blame the entity "upstream" e.g., dishonest doctors who abuse state and federal programs; malpractice; litigious patients; and greedy Insurers. In other words, it's always someone else's fault. What it really is is a total lack of leadership at the state and national level.  Healthcare is about more than one's individual well-being. As the largest expenditure (other than our homes) that any of us will ever make, healthcare is a matter of national defense that must be addressed by a government that can operate efficiently and with maximum efficacy.  Just as an army needs to be healthy in order to defend its country so, too, does its citizenry -- the people who work to actually make our country work -- need to be in the best condition possible.  We need to stop wasting so much of our national income on highly inefficient healthcare so that we can at least maintain parity with fast-growing industrial and economic competition from the European Union and the "Asian Tigers."  One-by-one, out of control healthcare costs are pulling down venerable institutions that have employed us and fed the lifeblood of our economy. Getting back to GM: It's troubles are not just a matter of building inferior cars (something they may have cured hopefully not too late) but also from healthcare program costs that made them uncompetitive with foreign manufacturers unburdened with unrealistic legacy programs.