Healthcare

A couple of days ago a newscaster played the Schoolhouse Rock video that puts the words of the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution to music. It's something we all need to consider during the current debates about health care, and one phrase in particular comes to mind. The phrase "promote the general welfare" seems relevant to me. General welfare. Hmmm. If health care were then what it is now, as in able to actually save lives instead of just bleeding people, then I think we would have had a system of public health care a long time ago. Access to health care promotes the general welfare. We have public schools, after all. Why not public health care as well? I would love to see the government look to our school system as a model for setting up health care in this country. I think they are going about it all wrong; they are looking at ways to offer insurance to everyone. We don't need insurance, we need HEALTH CARE. The need for insurance and how to pay for insurance is the big debate when that's just all about the middle man. Chuck the insurance and go straight to the source. Provide hospitals and clinics and doctors for free the same way we provide free education. That also leaves room for private hospitals and charter hospitals and more inventive ways of delivering service. Sure there will be problems, but we can solve those as we get to them. Long waits to see a doctor? Train more doctors. Provide incentives for the best and the brightest to go to medical school and become physicians. Other problems? Solve them and continue on. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater by saying "WE CAN'T". We live in the most powerful nation on earth; there's no excuse for denying anyone health care. WE CAN.