Why Is There A Health Care Reform Stalemate? Because There's A Language Disconnect, ...!

With auto insurance, every new driver can find auto insurance. Differences in rates depending on age are understood by everyone as routine.

After one accident maybe there's a rate increase depending on fault. After three or more accidents the driver gets penalized, the rates increase or the driver might get dropped. Even in these cases, the actions of the auto insurance companies are not only acceped but the public, tho maybe grudglingly, empathizes with the decisions as "just business". Even the driver's family usually steps in with a supportive "hey, cousin Bob maybe it's time you start using the BUS".

So cousin Bob loses his auto insurance and stops driving. Is that the end of Bob's getting around town? NO! Because Bob has ...OPTIONS!!!

Cousin Bob can use the public bus and can still get out and about, and affordably too. And everyone is happy or at least OK - the families, and Cousin Bob. And no one blames the auto insurance companies who are happier than a pig in XXX to get rid of the risk.

Now substitute "health care" for "auto" in this story and the problem becomes clear. America is not being served well by an insurance-model health care system where unhealthy, younger clients are simply dropped like bad drivers....because there is no option to go to! No one can or should expect Cousin Bob to simply die once he gets too sick to insure. But, like with auto insurance, a public health care option seems natural and should be part of the health care picture. In America, though, there is no health care option to private insurance unless one can qualify for medicare.

And the problem in Washington is the public option is a politically taboo subject for the Republicans....so, stalemate..and it is not even possible to discuss an option.

The result of trying to dodge the public health care option is a series of awkward "patch-quilt" attempts to create substitutes for a public option without really having a public option or even without having an option to for-profit insurance. Thus, the stumbling forth of "mandated" insurance which is an absurd frankenstein of self-delusion and words-stuck-in-mouth.

And this is the point of why all this health care reform debate has been so lengthy, traumatic and seemingly without solution. There is a LANGUAGE DISCONNECT.

INSURANCE IS NOT COVERAGE!! Health care insurance companies do not exist to serve the public or the nation. They exist to make profit, either that or go under.

Health care insurers operate just like any other insurance companies: if you become a risk (get sick) the companies will drop you! Ha, you say?! Well, that's what their stockholders expect them to do...plus, it's all above board and written down in the company charter.

The health care debate should not be about insurance. The health care insurance sector is doing just fine, thank you. But, America's health care system is gonzo, too expensive (17% of GDP), not covering everyone (40+ million uninsured), and getting worse.

The solution? First get the language straight, then apply logical analogies like the above story. We need public alternatives to private health care insurance, or better - a public, one source health care system.