Why we won't fix healthcare

Perhaps I am overly cynical, but I don't think the health care crisis will be solved anytime soon. We, as humans and Americans, aren't capable of this sort of change anymore. Sure that is cynical, but prove me wrong. The recession hit and we didn't change at all. The environment is disappearing right around our eyes, we don't care and instead spend more time and energy ignoring it. We have become too selfish to fix problems of this magnitude anymore because sometimes the issue doesn't impact us.

I don't think we are capable of this change because we won't have serious conversations. Race is a huge issue in our country, and we will never tackle it because we cannot discuss the issue. Health care is THE issue right now, but the real conversations haven't and won't happen.

The toughest conversation is to ask where the line is with health care. Let's say that we have universal health care. Everyone in the country now has access to health care. Where does that access stop? That is the question. If you are using a government funded insurance program, where does your access end?

Think of it this way, if you are using government-funded health care and you get cancer, do you get whatever treatment you want? If a child gets sick, do we exhaust any and all options (regardless of the cost) even if the conclusion is inevitable? Here is a scenario...

Lets say there is a four year old boy that is very sick. Doctors agree that this boy will never lead anything close to a normal life. Meanwhile, this child is at Children's Hospital running up a bill of $20,000 a day. The parents then stumble upon a new procedure that might extend the child's life a few years, but costs $250,000. They, the parents, aren't paying for it because their child is on state insurance (badger care). Does that make a difference?

I guess my issue is when do we say "that is ok as long as you are paying for it"? I am in favor of giving everyone in the country, and I wish the world, access to basic health care that meets certain standards. Right now, according to my wife (and her opinion matters more than most here), that isn't the case. But when I say basic health care, I am not sure where that ends. Getting really sick is terrible. People don't like making tough choices of when enough is enough, but eventually we have to.