Healthcare as identity… How we care is who we are

The healthcare we provide is a matter of identity.   Ours…

It is more than a political question.   It is more than simply economics.   It is these things but it is more.

Do we or can we have a healthcare system that allows us to be a good people?  It is not a pie in the sky question.   In some respects it is the most practical of questions.

How any society controls the access of its people to life sustaining activities defines in the most real of ways that society.   That is particularly true when that society could provide that access but chooses to deny it.

Our identity is intricately tied to the things we say no to.   It is also tied to what we feel like we must say yes to.

There are people who say that health care should never be “free.”   There are people who say it is a luxury we can’t afford.  They miss the point.

The lack of health care has a cost we can’t afford.   The lack of health care is a luxury we pay too much for.  It is not how can we.   It is how can we not.

Some people argue about the costs they see.   The problem is the costs they refuse to see.

If you were designing a system that was to be the only system the people you love would have access to at what point would you stop and say that the political realities will not allow that right now?  When would you be content with someone else stopping?

How we care is who we are.

The costs before us are not simply in dollars and cents. It is not about closing our eyes for fear of what it costs to see.

Can we afford to be a good people? Perhaps it is the wrong question. Given the costs can we afford not to be?