Life Support: HR 676

Mitchell,Luke. “Sick in the Head: Why America won't get the health-care system it needs.” Harpers Magazine. The Harpers Magazine Foundation, Feb 2009. Web. 28 Jan. 2010.

Read this article

As my topic deals with technology and the advancement on medicine I decided to start off my reading responses with the primary debate that is currently happening in congress over the HR 676 which is the universal health care system. Luke Mitchell the author is trying to understand why this bill has yet to be passed in congress and has come up with a few main ideas as to why. The first of these involves how this new health care bill will effect the market based system of economics that America has immersed herself into over the years. Mitchell points to president Obama saying that in order to transform America to a single-payer health care system, meaning that the government would foot the bill, that it would be a difficult transition to for us to undertake. He then points to Montana senator Max Baucus would said that those who are not covered should pay into a private cooperation and subsidize those who could not afford to do so. This would be the closet thing to universal health care that we could achieve without changing the markets completely. The second idea is how much coverage should be given to those under universal health care. The problem Mitchell says is that medicine and technology is growing so fast that we can not possible cover all new technological advances. We just cant afford to provide the latest health scan to every person there has to be a “budget” as to what gets covered and what doesn't. The final problem is the idea that Americans look to technology to repair any problems that their life may present them with. Mitchell points to the IDN or integrated network delivery where every persons DNA is placed into that any doctor or specialist can access and recommend a course of action. He also points to new nano technologies that will be able to fix any problems using microscope robots. These are the main points to which Mitchell is trying to focus us on.

What I took away from this particular article is the amount of problems that we face as Americans towards HR 676. This bill is proposed as a universal health care system but it ultimately will still be run by the markets that the economy has created. More people will be covered, pre existing conditions will not matter but we still have to rationalize this health care coverage. Mitchell's most valid point in why Americans wont get the health care system they need is simply rationalizing. Now days we can not afford to help those who are poor and cannot afford health care however under universal health care will we be able to cover them but to what degree. This fraction of a degree is why no health care system will be perfect. Certain people will all be left out the question is do we give good coverage to most or little to all? In a way I think Mitchell is trying to get people to realize that no system is perfect but which is the lesser of evils. I think the last thing Mitchell is trying to get the reader to understand is that while many feel that we will eventually be able to solve all of our medical problems through technology hence there will be no need to leave any out as we can cure all diseases at birth is that how soon will this be a reality. Sure over the past hundred years we've progressed from flying a simple plane to landing on the moon but how feasible is landing on the moon been since then let alone every human being. Technology may ultimately cure all illness but when that becomes a feasible option for the over 6 billion and growing humans on earth is another problem all together.