I must ask Mr. Gerald K. McOscar: ("Wading through ObamaCare"... May 30) Is it really so surprising that legislation that attempts to solve a difficult, longstanding problem - how to provide affordable health care for every citizen (like every other industrialized society) - should require so many difficult verbal constructions spread across so many pages of text? Should our judgment on such rest on it's expository concision, or some misplaced belief that all things can be, and must be, "plain spoken"?
And please, given that you are a lawyer, I am sure that you don't really mean to equate such necessary complexity with intentional, that is, self-serving obfuscation, but perhaps I am mistaken. The reality is that the Affordable Care Act's meaningful reforms are actually quite straightforward and rather easy to grasp in terms of their contribution, or not, to the American idea.
No doubt, we would have been spared many pages of "impenetrable legalese" had the White House managed to secure a single-payer system, clearly the simplest and most efficient model available. Lacking such, U.S. firms will continue to face a significant competitive hurdle vis-à-vis nations where health care expenses have been removed from the corporate cost structure. By way of example, it is understood that in the U.S. market the typical imported Toyota carries less than $200 in employee costs above and beyond salary (primarily health care benefits), whereas the figure for a comparable American car is roughly $1,500.
But still, the Affordable Care Act as written is quite a "game changer," one that needs to be talked-up, honestly debated and ultimately understood for what it really is -- an example of government acting boldly for the common good. And here is where I have a bit of a problem with Mr. McOscar's attempt to undermine this long overdue legislation. Mr. McOscar has little to say about what the law actually provides. Instead his tactics are innuendo and implication, feeling perhaps that in the current polarized climate facts are quite beside the point.
I would like to steer the conversation towards a more substantive footing, by offering a short list of some of the law's important reforms.
What does the Affordable Care Act really grant? What does one find in those many pages of paragraphs and subparagraphs, sections and subsections? Here in "plain-spoken" language (courtesy of HealthCare.gov run by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) is a sampling of what has been won by this president, after many before him, both Democrats and Republicans, had tried and failed.
How about a "Patient's Bill of Rights" for starters? (A partial list):
oProvides coverage to Americans with Pre-existing ConditionsoProtects Your Choice of DoctorsoKeeps Young Adults Covered (to age 26)oEnds Lifetime Limits on CoverageoEnds Pre-Existing Condition Exclusions for ChildrenoEnds Arbitrary Withdrawals of Insurance CoverageoReviews Premium IncreasesoRestricts Annual Dollar Limits on Coverage
My point is that I am sure that many of those who damn this legislation are not out there arguing against the obvious need for a "Patient's Bill of Rights. Instead we find a concern for the length of the legislative document, its difficult legal jargon, unfounded cries of "socialism" or "death panels," and always that Nancy Pelosi commentary on the legislative process itself, but rarely do we find a fair-minded challenge to its substance, its powerful and broadly popular response to an industry too long in total control of America's health care options.
As full participants in this democracy it is our duty to demand facts, not slogans; our duty to judge our leaders and their initiatives critically but fairly. The late Ted Kennedy often told the story about how he came to be the champion of health care. Spending time in a cancer ward with his young son, he looked around at those parents who shared his family's trauma but who, lacking his Senate-provided top-tier health plan, faced the same implacable threat to their own innocents with far fewer options. How did they cope, he wondered? How did working Americans deal with the knowledge that they too could be but one diagnosis away from financial ruin? Or, from the ravages of knowing that their - or any - child's ability to beat an existential threat may be simply a matter of a lucky birth.
KURT JAWORSKI
Chester County