Sadly, most of the so-called debate I hear and read about regarding health care reform is of the most pedantic and polarizing of political partisanship. Most of what I hear and read is shrill and vitriolic, far from thoughtful and civil. If those elected "public servants" and public personalities so opposed to reform, who happen to have quality insurance and financial resources, would spend the night with me in our Emergency Room or in the Operating Room waiting area or on the floor for Labor & Delivery, I believe they might have a change of perspective, if not a change of heart.
As the sun rises, I walk to the parking garage by way of the ten story out patient treatment tower adjacent to the Eye Institute and the Children's Hospital. It sometimes feels as if my hospital is "TBTF", is impersonal, too concerned with ever shifting bottom lines. If my hospital environment can feel that way, how about the entire health care system in our country. I feel like a tiny piece in a complicated puzzle. Yet I hear far too little from local physicians and hospital administrators and nurse managers, chaplains and others about health care reform.
I have been reading, in addition to the "less than all the news fit to print" on this subject, three books entitled And a Time to Die: How American Hospitals Shape the End of Life by Sharon R. Kaufman,
Living Well and Dying Faithfully: Christian Practices for End-of-Life Care by John Swinton, Richard Payne, and Stanley Hauerwas, and Accompany Them with Singing--The Christian Funeral by Thomas G. Long. When I started them, I wasn't consciously thinking of the first dealing with end of life, the second with dying, and the third with the funeral but they have turned out to be an interesting constellation of viewpoints on issues that I deal with on an almost daily basis. I wish I could report that the insights imparted from them have been revelatory and life-changing. They haven't been; at least not yet. However, the books have provided a tremendous amount of food for thought and reflection. Depending on what one does with the majority of one's working day, I recommend at least one of these books to you.
I continue to struggle and be disappointed with the health care reform debate in our country. I believe we can do better. In a blog dated February 12, 2010 entitled Frozen Reform, Robert D. Francis writes: "The federal government finally reopened today after four days closed due to record snowfall in the DC area. As for health-care reform, it’s seemed frozen since Scott Brown was elected to the Senate last month." It doesn't have all the answers, but at least it's a thoughtful attempt at addressing the "TBTF" elephant in the room. Follow this to rest of blog: http://theolog.org/2010/02/frozen-reform.html.
If our health care system is "TBTF", what are we going to do? Run back into our burrows like Punxsutawney Phil and hide? Let those with other agendas make decisions in their best interest, not the interests of patients and taxpayers? I hope the spring thaw arrives soon; Lord, real soon.
