Controversial Future of Health Care Bill

The summary of the failed attempt to pass the health care bill in Senate is discussed in this article from The New York Times. The result of the attempt, however, should not be surprising as it was reported in another article sometime ago that even if health care bill somehow managed to pass through the Senate, President Obama would veto it, making it nearly impossible to override the veto.

In other words, it would be very unlikely that this bill would be repealed as long as President Obama is still in the office, and that the Senate has majority of Democrats. But, I am not writing here to describe the current situation with repealing as this news is already widely discussed in many media.

Instead, I want to bring you in the discussion of why this bill has such controversial future aside from its context (e.g. the information in the bill). Both Republicans and Democrats would agree that the bill is far from perfect, and in fact, it certainly needs work with degree of "work" varying in the perspectives of Democrats and Republicans.

To do so, I will give brief perspectives that Republican Congressmen, who also happen to be medical doctors, have towards this view.

Rand Paul, M.D. (Kentucky)

In the newspaper The Hill, Rand Paul said last year, "What I would like to see is a more market-oriented approach."¹ As discussed in more details on his website, his attitude towards the health care bill is that it should retain less governmental involvement so that people, regardless of their health conditions, have more choices when it comes to buying insurances.

Ron Paul, M.D. (Texas)

Ron Paul is probably better known than Rand Paul for his statement of health care not being a "right" to citizens, including himself, as mentioned in the Yahoo! article. His view hasn't changed at least based on what is mentioned in the recent CNN blog. The perspective here is more on constitutional reasoning that health care is not one of the fundamental rights explicitly listed by the Founding Fathers.

Tom Coburn, M.D. (Oklahoma)

Tom Coburn wrote rather lengthy article explaining his point to one of the Yahoo! News in past. In particular, he said, "The fundamental problem with the current reform bill is that it fixes the wrong problem. In medicine, we call this treating symptoms rather than the disease. The fundamental problem in health care is cost."² As he goes in more details throughout that article, his main argument is that the bill does not effectively address the growing issue of the cost.

All Appear Valid But Why Bill Did Not Repeal?

As many people may be aware of, the most effective way of cure in medicine is preventive medicine. To practice preventive medicine currently, physicians must address alternate solutions. This "alternate solution" is what is absent in the current situation. While three Republican Senators with years of medicine background all have what appear to be valid reasons, they do not adequately provide an exact system to solve the problem. In fact, no alternate solution has been proposed that could be used to compromise between Democrats and Republicans.

Because the bill is in place, it would be challenging to repeal it, and for any change to occur, both sides must come to realize that the bill would be very difficult to remove without presenting sufficient alternate version that does better job of "prevention."

Works Cited

¹ Mike Lillis, "Rand Paul urges market-based coverage, not 'Patient's Bill of Rights.' The Hill 26 Oct. 2010, accessed 4 Feb. 2011. http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/125893-rand-paul-urges-market-based-coverage-not-patients-bill-of-rights

² Tom Coburn, "Op-Ed: Health bill is malpractice," Yahoo! News, 17 Mar. 2010, accessed 4 Feb. 2011. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1272