Health-Care Rx: Phase Out the Failing For-Profit System

AUSTIN, Texas — Have you noticed that the health-care system is not working? In fact, it's falling apart. And the most curious thing about that is how few of the people for whom the system still works — and they're the ones who make the decisions — are aware of it.
It's like the old story about frogs and hot water. If you drop a frog into boiling water, it will leap to get out, but if you drop a frog in cool water and then gradually heat it up, the beast doesn't notice. Or so they say. Another factor is the now-constant cognitive dissonance we have in this country as a result of the ever-widening gap between most people and the people who run things. If you have health insurance, the system is a pain in the behind but it works. If you don't have health insurance, you are flat out of luck. And in case you hadn't noticed, more and more employers are deciding not to offer health insurance, or using "temporary" workers or out-sourcing various tasks so they won't have to cover the workers.

If you don't have health insurance, the system is an insane nightmare. A new book by Dr. Rudolph Mueller, "As Sick As It Gets: The Shocking Reality of America's' Healthcare" lays out the problems as well as any I've read. But the book is just one more grain of sand in the beaches of evidence we already have that the system is breaking up.