To your health - the politics of health care reform - Column

Well, maybe it wasn't a health-care crisis after all; maybe we were just a bit under the weather. The way things were going, I wasn't even surprised when the watered-down version of the health plan--stay warm and drink plenty of fluids--was blocked by the Republican leadership. Now I understand they want "in sickness and in health" out of the marriage vows.

The last report from Mrs. Clinton's task force--"three quarters of a cup of brown sugar and not a cup as stated earlier"--illustrated the degree to which the issue had gotten away from the Administration. The flak from all sides took its toll; I don't think I was alone in beginning to feel I would be the single payer in a single-payer system, or that managed care could manage without me. My Jimmy Carter malaise even began acting up again (especially after getting a look at Mrs. Cedras).

The political maneuvering was occasionally brilliant; you've got to hand it to Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich for coming up with the notion that everything is a preexisting condition. For President Clinton there isn't a great deal to salvage from the process, although the health-care card would do nicely to slip the lock on a closed clinic door.

While the sheer scale of the original proposal may have led to its annihilation, after all, it wouldn't have been a comprehensive plan if it didn't have something to alarm everybody. Doctors complained long and hard about having been left out of the decision-making. Perhaps so, but in an age when only Dr. Kevorkian makes house calls and magnetic resonance imagers have filled the void left by x-ray shoe machines, it's nice to see them take an interest in health care again. Small business owners weren't excited about becoming health-care providers, and you've got to admit it's a leap of faith to imagine the same guy who hasn't changed the Krackles in the break room vending machine since the late 1980s taking responsibility for your health and well-being.

Initially, the insurance industry was in a panic. Who could blame it, with all those dependents in state legislatures and Congress to look after? That's a lot of mouths to feed, not to mention guaranteed insurance jobs when they get out (even though some of these guys have a demonstrated inability to sell policies). Then Harry and Louise began to have their misgivings, Americans closed ranks around the television characters in a way they hadn't since little Ricky was born, and a way of life, however under-insured, was preserved.

Meanwhile, the pharmaceuticals, fearing their halcyon days were over and they'd have to compete on the street with everybody else (and with the phone in front of the liquor store out of service), recovered from their initial misstep of threatening to withhold vaccines from schoolchildren, and put their money and samples on the true torchbearers of the democratic process, the Business Roundtable: Jim Cooper, Lancelot. In short, everybody did his part, or, as Senator Dole put it, "That's the way it is supposed to work."

Bill Clinton, when he could be heard over the fat lady, was calling for heroic measures, but for now it's clear that the Greatest Nation on Earth is going to have to improvise if it wants medical coverage for all its citizens. The near-term solution seems obvious: marry a Canadian. If we all married Canadians we'd be covered by one of the most comprehensive health-care plans in the world, all for the daily cost of a twelve pack of Moosehead.

This simple step alone would eliminate the shortage of medical services, although it would create a shortage of Canadians. Call it a marriage of medical convenience, if you will, but in the long run it's what goes on under the coverage, not the covers, that counts. Love comes and goes, but major medical goes on and on.

Another viable option is the "T and T" plan: office calls in Toronto and meds in Tijuana, which sounds like a lot of travel until considered against the time spent in holding patterns while stacked up over clinic waiting rooms (and without the honey nuts). Not only is this approach surprisingly competitive, but with all the frequent-flier mileage, free tickets to Lourdes can provide additional coverage.

COPYRIGHT 1994 The Progressive, Inc.
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