I would like to just start off here by giving my girl Olympia Snowe [seriously great name] a big one up for growing a pair.  I’m pretty sure she and I live by the same motto, which, though basic and commercialized, I’ve found tends to work out in the long run: DO THE RIGHT THING. 

Inevitably, we will not remember this moment as fondly as we do today, if she changes her mind in the next few months, but I’d like to point out that, unlike, I’d say, the majority of her colleagues, she made a lot of sense when she finally opened her mouth:

When history calls, history calls. And I happen to think that the consequences of inaction dictate the urgency of Congress to take every opportunity to demonstrate its capacity to solve the monumental issues of our time

I want one of those little tape recorders!!

In other words: how will we face our children and our children’s children if we don’t do this now, when things have gotten so bad, that if we do nothing, we will always be remembered for our failure to act? You know what Olympia, I happen to agree with you.

Secondly, I’d like to offer one piece of truth I imagine would be recognized if it was pondered by anyone with the capacity for understanding: the health care system, in its entirety — from insurance companies to pharmaceutical companies to private hospitals to ERs, ORs, ICUs, OBGYNs, etc.– should be a NON-FOR-PROFIT enterprise.  And let me tell you why… (you knew I was going to):

1. There will never not be doctors

There have always been doctors.  And, I can say from my own experience with them, both the doctors who have treated me and those I know personally, they’re really not in it for the money.  Part of the Hippocratic oath reads: “Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption.”

While they can look scary, they tend to be pretty decent, unselfish people.  That which is driving doctors to leave their profession is not their pay, but instead their inability to treat their patients the way they would like to if they were free of the restrictions brought on by insurance companies.  Ex. “No, we won’t cover that life-saving medication.” Which brings me to point two.

2. Medicine, as a science, will never advance without large scale access, in both directions

I was reading about the phony “insurance industry report” recently released by, lets face it, the bad guys, which stated something along the lines of “premiums to reach $4000/month under Bacaus plan.”  While we’re obviously not the most empathetic country in the world, I’m not sure we’re ready to reach a point when less than a quarter of our population has health care.  Not only is wrong, but it is also against the natural progression of medicine, which requires new patients with unique cases in order to grow.

And guess who gets irritated when they don’t have a massive population to sell their overpriced drugs to?

3. We all need each other in order to make this work in the end

The truth is, while they currently have all the say in the relationship, without access to professional health care and FDA approved medications, people will find another way — it is in our nature to do so; it is, perhaps, the greatest genius of our species — and Big Pharma will lose control of the court.  And pharmaceutical companies need a large population of people on their medications in order to sustain themselves.  Why do you think they advertise so aggressively?

You don’t have to talk to your doctor about these drugs, they already know about them! And they know if you should be on them or not.  But Pharma continues to advertise because Pharma needs us to keep buying their drugs, and they need scientists to keep producing them.  Likewise, the insurance industry needs doctors to accept their plans, which many have stopped doing, and in turn, needs us to buy into them.  If anyone stopped for a second and realized how well this could work if it ran the way it ought to… maybe instead of changing the practices, we just have to remove the people currently practicing them.

ELIMINATE GREED FROM HEALTH CARE: THERE IS NO ROOM FOR IT IN TRUE MEDICINE

“Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love of humanity”

Hippocrates, c. 400 BC