Thanks to wikipedia for this example of a rebel Goldberg machine

The passage of the felon president’s Big Ugly Bill in the wee hours of Thursday coming up on a holiday weekend should send a super chill through the backbone of every American who loves this country and its people. This bill was designed for the .1% of Americans at the very tip top.

What it did was to show just how much at the mercy we are with an unstable government with an unstable and uninformed leader at the helm. We are at the mercy of this unstable government for many things, but the most vulnerable is our access to medical care.

We are in the midst of watching what is a medical system built for a horse and buggy era about to take the blows from an unstable leadership as that leadership cuts huge chunks of money in order to give that money to their donors. It is as noted by one congress member theft from the poor to give to the rich.

We look at health care systems in other first world countries and we see systems that are systems. They are designed to get optimal results from a flow through the system. By designing it that way they also achieve minimizing costs. In comparison, the USA has no real system. Instead we have people working in an industry with many disconnected parts that seems to be built to extract the maximum dollar from the customer with little concern about the outcome.

While stopping the current crisis that will cause millions to lose their health care coverage is the most important problem for today, it is well past time for a thorough systemic investigation and overhaul. There should never have been a situation where millions could lose their access to health care. A system must be designed that does not allow that.

We have gotten into this situation because of money in politics. MAGAs once known as Republicans helped evolve our current Rube Goldberg machine of a health care “system” by designing methods for wealthy individuals and corporations to extract maximum dollars from the system while minimizing their costs. The corporations and wealthy got these favors thanks to their “donations” to candidates for office.

Thus whereas most modern countries have a system for an individuals health that flows in one direction and includes all the body, we have a system with plenty of stopping points where money is extracted. We have Medicare, ”Medicare Advantage”, Medicaid, VA, Obamacare, CHIPs, many brands of private insurance each with their own requirements for entry and many varying cost and deductibles.

On top of that, most of the above listed options (and that is far from a complete list) only covers some of our bodies. They do not cover dental or hearing for instance – another break in the flow.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, we pay dearly, dearly for this god awful disconnected, dysfunctional system. As I often say we pay twice as much for half the results of any other country in the world. How dumb can we be. 

Note that the dysfunctionality of our system is a product of the political system which is built on money donations. Money and the rich are at the very base of our dysfunctional system. While driving the money from the system is really the only way we may ever have a shot at fully reforming the system, we can still make reform a goal.

We can make a difference by becoming really active. If the possibility of losing your health care doesn’t make you want to get politically active I don’t know what you need for motivation. Make it a resolution to call your representatives. Make it a resolution to help get out the vote next year.

Remember taking away healthcare is probably only the tip of the iceberg.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez discusses waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare Advantage: (5.5 minutes)