So, surprise of all surprises, congress actually managed to get something accomplished.  As usual, they piddled around for half the time, lost focus so often that the entire organization could be test subjects for Ritalin, and managed to get their ethics and morals dictated to them by corporate America once again proving that most legislators care more about getting re-elected than they do for enacting what they honestly feel is best for the American people.  The healthcare bill is a giant mess…but at least congress managed to pass something.  A ringing endorsement if ever I heard it.

Unlike most Americans, I don’t any strong feelings about health care reform one way or the other.  I believe, for many reasons, that we desperately need some health care reform in this country.  I also believe that forcing people to get insurance that they may not be able to afford (and penalizing them for not getting it) is ludicrous.  Throughout this whole process, I’ve stayed uninvolved, because I’m not entirely sure how I feel about what’s going on or where I stand.  It’s not that I don’t care about the outcome, I just haven’t figured out how I feel about the various methods proposed to get us to the various outcomes.  I do have, nonetheless, some random thoughts about the whole thing. 

I want to preface my random thoughts with an anecdote: I have a beautiful little niece who has some special needs.  She is the sweetest, most loving little girl in the world, and I love her to death.  But mere months after her birth, Regence Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Utah cancelled this beautiful child’s health insurance policy for a ludicrous (and in my opinion, fraudulent, reason).  They left a young couple, with one parent still in school, with tens of thousands of dollars in debt because, essentially, Blue Cross saw the bills start to pile up with no diagnosis.  They found some way to simply cancel the insurance that her parents were paying for because they realized they were never going to make any money from a kid with health issue.  (And according to my nieces pediatricians, Regence Blue Cross/Blue Shield did this exact same offensive behavior with alarming regularity.)  They left her parents with no recourse, no money, no way to care for one of the most wonderful children you would ever meet.  And worst of all, they left the burden for caring for this child with an undiagnosed pre-existing condition on the state.  When they cancelled her insurance, they basically ensured that my niece would never again be able to get insurance for the rest of her life, despite the fact that neither she nor her parents had done anything wrong.  This, obviously, shapes my opinion on the state of health care a great deal.

Now, my random thoughts.

Random Thought #1 – None of this hoopla about rules and regulations, new laws, and death panels would be necessary if the insurance companies, malpractice lawyers, and health care providers of this country were a little less interested in lining their wallets and a little more interested in helping people.  I’m not saying that companies and people shouldn’t be adequately compensated, but when you’re more concerned about improving profits over last quarter in order to keep your stock price high for your shareholders than you are about covering a 6-month-old baby with unknown developmental disabilities, then we have a problem.  SHAME ON YOU Regence Blue Cross/Blue Shield.  FOR SHAME.

Random Thought #2 – When it was announced that health care legislation was passed, Twitter and Facebook lit up with indignation like I’ve never seen before.  I don’t mind people having strong opinions…even strong opinions that disagree with my own.  I don’t need to live my life in a world where everyone agrees with me.  But I can’t help but wonder how many of those people who bemoaned the fact that this law passed ever bothered to research the bill beyond what they heard on Fox News or NPR.  How many of them wrote an email or a letter to their congressman or senator?  How many of them marched in a rally or attended a town hall meeting?  If you hate the law so much, then why didn’t you try to do anything to stop it?  If you didn’t try, then you need to shut up about it.  You had your chance to make your voice heard. 

For instance, I find the anti-gay marriage laws (like prop 8) to be absolutely infuriating, discriminatory, and offensive.  And, for understandable reasons, these feelings are deeply held.  But I didn’t write any law-makers.  I didn’t march in any parades.  So until I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is and make my voice heard, then I have no room to speak.  Even though the US is a Republic (i.e., we elect people to represent us), we are a republic founded upon democratic ideals.  If you don’t like something, make your voice heard to the people who represent you.  It’s your responsibility as a citizen.  If you don’t make your voice heard, then you have no right to complain when laws get passed that you don’t like.  If you did make your voice heard, good for you…even if we disagree on the outcome.  YOU can keep complaining.

Random Thought #3 – While I believe that reforming health care is important, I’m not a fan of any legislation that "forces" people to get health care that they may not be able to afford.  The problem is that you can’t apply a specific formula to all people.  Can I afford to spend 10% of my income on health care?  Yeah…it would be tight, but I could do it.  Could I spent 15%?  Barely.  How about 20%?  Not a chance.  But I’m a single man with no children in good health.  I make pretty good money.  I’m already paying about 5% of my income for health insurance and you know what I get from that?  I get a policy that has a $1,850 deductible, and after that, I still have to pay 20% co-pay on most of my doctor’s visits.  I do not have dental insurance.  I don’t have vision insurance.  If I get sick, I generally don’t go to the doctor, because I really don’t have an extra $2,000 a year to spend on top of the 5% of my income that I’m already spending.  If I were to spent 10%, I’d get a policy with a $1250 deductible and 15% co-pay.  In all honesty, I’d be better off with nothing but catastrophic coverage and just paying for it out of pocket.  I basically have to pay all my medical care out of pocket anyway since I never reach my deductible.  The 5% I’m paying now isn’t even worth it.  I might as well be paying nothing and saving that extra 5%. 

Moreover, I’m just not a fan of the Government telling me what to do.  I pay my taxes.  I don’t break the laws.  I don’t want to be forced to spend money I don’t have on insurance I can’t afford in order to have a piece of paper that says I’m covered when, in reality, I’m only covered if I’m sick or injured enough that I’m probably going to die anyway.

Random Thought #4 – I saw a tweet earlier today that summed up my feelings pretty well.  It needed to be translated because it was written in text speak, but the gist of the quote was, "If we are forced to pay for health care reform, the beneficiaries should be forced to face drug tests, and penalties should be applied to those unwilling to quit cigarettes, drugs, or drinking."  As a 31-year-old man who is only VERY slightly overweight, walks at least two miles every single day, eats relatively healthily, has never smokes, drinks, or does drugs, how can I ensure that my money isn’t going to subsidize those people who make stupid decisions.  If my insurance rates are going to go up (and I’m not saying that they are…I don’t know) I want to make sure that the money I’m paying in that isn’t going to help me is at least going to help those like my little niece, not some dumbass drunk driver who gets in an accident or some life-long chain smoker who gets lung cancer.  Where’s the stupid tax in this system?

Random Thought #5 – The death of centrism in politics is one of the most tragic things that can be evidenced in this whole process.  Once again, government proved that they can’t get past party lines to compromise.  It’s not the fault of the Democrats or Republicans, it’s the fault of the system.  Those in seats of power have proven once again that they are only interested in doing what’s going to keep them in office…and unfortunately, what keeps people in office is extremism.  Despite our constant cries for bipartisanship, the American people haven’t proven with their votes that they value people who can compromise in order to accomplish something.  As long as politicians think that the only way to get elected is to pander to those on the extremes of the political spectrum, we’ll never be able to pass the kinds of laws we really should pass.

Random Thought #6 – I’m appalled at the number of people who make up their mind on important issues based on what they hear in a YouTube video, on a 60-second commercials during the morning news, or on a 2-minute segment on NPR.  Nobody does any research on their own.  I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but I make it a habit not to establish my political views based on Tweets and Facebook status updates.  The days of participative governance are apparently over, and that’s sad.  When a talking head on Fox News can tell you what to believe, and you believe them without doing any research on your own, shame on YOU.

Random Thought #7 – Many of the people who complain about how expensive this health care bill is going to be are the same people who doggedly support our involvement in the "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan for the last nine years.  If you’re so worried about cost, maybe we should stop sacrificing our citizens’ lives and throwing money away in the desert, and start using some of those hundreds of billions of dollars we’re throwing into a war against an ideal that we will never be able to win and instead refocus those countless billions into reforming the world at home. (Wow, that’s quite the run-on sentence).

Random Thought #8 – No matter how bleak things seem, the fact of the matter is that the world will not come to an end because Health Care Reform was signed into law.  Nor will the second coming of Christ be ushered in on the wings on Health Care Reform.  Chances are that this law will make next to no impact in the lives of pretty much everyone.  There are literally thousands of bad laws on the books now–some enforced, some not.  Some businesses will fail, others will succeed.  Insurance companies will still find ways to screw the little guy, lawyers will still find ways to line their pockets by suing anything that moves, and people will still get by with our without insurance.  The world will still go on turning.  Children will still starve to death every day in the third world.  People will still meet, fall in love, and get married.  And who knows, maybe ten or fifteen years down the road, we will have worked out the kinks in this new system that NOBODY truly understands, and we’ll find that this was a good thing in the long run.  We may find out that it was one of the biggest blunders in all of political history.  But I think we’ll find out that, like most things, this law had some good and some bad and probably didn’t make much difference one way or the other.  Because, in the end, it all balances out.