heath care rant of an old psychologist

I put the follwoing rant up on a psychologist bulliten board. I thought I would put it here too.

(rant starts here)

It looks like the Senate Finance Committee has delivered its version of the Heath Care Bill, and guess what …. We, as a nation, and psychologists as a profession, are f**ked. Not a big surprise.

The Senate version does not have a public option. Max sold out to the insurance and drug lobby. The Republicans are against a public option. They say that government can’t run anything well and they don’t want to trust their medical care to the government.

They have a good point. Here in Mass, where we have health care for almost everyone, many of the subsidized people are getting moved off of the usual Medicaid program and on to a new, more bare-bones plan. The plan is low-cost, with high deductibles and high co-payments. And guess what, mental health services get paid less, much less. And guess what else, they have carved out the mental health services to a managed care company from Dallas. So, what’s new there? Nothing.


America has a great deal of trouble finding a way to provide health care to its citizens. In my small mind there are three major reasons for this:

1. Too many people are making money on health care and they don’t want to stop. In most other countries doctors makes less, hospitals are run more efficiently, and not as a business, and no one financially benefits from asking for more tests, owning stakes in MRI labs, giving out the pills of certain pharmaceutical companies, running a nursing home, or using people’s illness as a ticket to leveraged riches.
As a note to this I need someone to explain to me how private insurance is allowed to sell policies to young, mostly healthy people, and to make a nice profit on them, and then, when they are old and need much more costly medical attention, they are then put on the government’s dollar, on Medicare.. Of course Medicare runs a deficit. They have all the old and sick people. The young people send their money somewhere else.

2. Americans hate to pay taxes. They feel that every dollar they acquire, through work, dividends, inheritance, lottery, poker, cheating, stealing, or lying, is their money, and they don’t want to give much of it to the government. Of course, the government should provide the infrastructure, should keep them safe, educate their children, blow-up all possible enemies, subsidize farms, banks, unions, scientific research, mortgages; keep air and water clean; save the fishes, worms and birds, and do anything else the population may need to make money and stay healthy. But no one sees a need to pay taxes.
Look at California. They approve of many great programs, for science, education, the environment, and many more BUT they don’t approve any money to pay for it. So guess what? They are bankrupt.

3. Too many people, and too many businesses lie. They probably always did, but now with constant, total communication, it just seems to be pervasive. I don’t believe any advertisement. Whenever I see something on TV, on a web site, or if someone is selling me something, I believe the opposite of what is being said. Perhaps I am old and cynical, but doing this has saved me a great deal of money and aggravation.
I have come to believe that we now live in a culture that accepts this. We don’t expect anyone to do much of anything that is not directly in their own best interest. We don’t want to see this country as a cohesive society. And we certainly won’t give a dime to an “alien.” It was not always this way. But once some people and some businesses began to take advantage of other’s good intentions, it became clear that unless you got tough and suspicious someone would take advantage of you. So people learned.
So many psychologists are good caring people, doing as good a job as they can with the limited tools at their disposal, and guess what? Most of us, who are part of the system, have not gotten a raise in fifteen years. Now, as a reward, we will get paid less, no matter how this turns out.
I think Mr. Obama made a sincere effort to change the system. I think at times he may wonder why so many people deserted him when he thought he was doing what they elected him to do. I’m sure he can’t understand why people are more willing to pay $900 a month to a for-profit company, when they could probably get similar service by paying $400 a month in taxes. But, as I said, they won’t pay taxes.
We will inch forward. We will probably find a way to make sure that people with existing illness can get coverage, and that even if you don’t have a job you can find a way to buy health insurance, even if it is a lot of money for a not very good plan. Yet, in truth, this is progress.
Anyway, soon I will be on Medicare. I don’t want the government messing with my Medicare. And “death panels” don’t scare me. When the time comes I’m buying a Harley.

(rant ends here)