(Thoughts

Health Care Reforms

acquire coverage in the private market.
That can mean long periods without
coverage, or with costly catastrophic cov-
here's a lot of noise about health
erage, and dangerous Catch-22 provisions
care — wildly false claims, meet-
down the line: You can't get coverage if you
ings being disrupted, shrill voices
didn't have coverage in the past
shouting down legislators. Amid
— that pesky pre-existing con-
the din, real ideas and concerns
dition exclusion.
are getting lost.
Particularly offensive are
It's easy and lazy to criticize
attempts
by opponents to con-
something. What's difficult
vince
older
people that reform
and bold is to recognize that
proposals
would
steal their ben-
a critically important part of
efits
or
destroy
Medicare.
Many
our country's infrastructure is
of
the
Medicare
"cuts"
are
deliv-
severely broken and to come up
ery
system
reforms
that
aging
with a plan to fix it.
advocates have been urging.
The premise of many health
Rachel
We actually could see improve-
reform naysayers is that the sys-
Goldberg
ments to the Medicare program
tem isn't bad now, but it will be
Special
if reform occurs — changes that
if \,ve "reform" it. The next part of
Commentary
won't
happen otherwise.
that theory is that what Canada
Seniors
are an important
and England have creates prob-
constituency
because
they know the impor-
lems that do not exist in the health care
tance
of
health
care
and
care about their
utopia we currently occupy (Incidentally,
children
and
grandchildren.
Using fear to
none of the congressional proposals would
turn
them
against
reform
is
reprehensible.
adopt their systems.)
Also outrageous: Raising the specter of
Even assuming the initial premise is true
Nazis
to promote the absurdist scare tactics
— and it's not unless you are wealthy and
about
fictional
death panels. too.
lucky — we still know the next parts are
The
U.S.
health
care system is broken. In
demonstrably untrue.
the
richest
nation
in
the world, about 47
If we do nothing, employer-based coverage
million
Americans
have
no health insurance.
will continue to erode, even as our unstable
Millions
of
Americans
are
underinsured,
job market means more people are losing
unable
to
afford
co-pays
or
prescriptions or
access to employer plans. And when people
even
are
forced
into
bankruptcy
by uncov-
lose or switch jobs, often they are unable to

Washington/JTA

T

Dry Bones ISRAEL'S IMAGE

ISRAEL'S MEDIA
IMAGE IS THAT OF
BEING A MIGHTY /
SUPER POWER!

THIS HELPS HER
MULTITUDE OF
ENEMIES TO

ered expenses (medical
costs are the biggest single
cause of bankruptcy in the
United States).
The numbers of people
who don't visit doctors or
fill prescriptions because
they are underinsured
KEEP FROM FEELING
is rising. Meanwhile, the
EMBARRASSED BY
traveling clinics created to
THEIR INABILITY TO
serve disease-ravaged parts
DESTROY
of the developing world
now also visit underserved
communities in poor and
rural parts of the United
States. People travel many
miles and wait countless
hours for those services.
As a human rights
DryBonesBlog.com
organization, B'nai B'rith
is dedicated to health care
feasible and financially fair.
for all. We have not yet
A reform plan should include provisions
endorsed any piece of legislation — we
for
the high costs of prescription drugs and
see problems as well as real promise in
long-term
care issues. Our population is
each of them. Legislators are working hard
aging
and
the
latter's costs have the potential
to do more than stake out ideological and
to
further
erode
our current system.
political territory.
Health
issues
can serve as the great
At the most basic level, health care
leveler
of
our
society.
Everyone gets sick
coverage needs to be comprehensive,
and
needs
medical
attention.
It's time for a
affordable and secure. It must ensure
better
system.
that people can keep the coverage they
like and acquire coverage they can afford.
Rachel Goldberg is director of aging policy for
Realistic health care reform must address
B'nai B'rith International.
long-term services and be both politically

❑

Reality Check

Carefree Highway

W

by air brings out more of them; things that
hen you read this, if all goes
may be inflicted upon you by people who
well, I'll be in the middle of
seem accountable to no one and whose
a road trip for a wedding to
main qualification for their job seems to
Boston and back.
be
a total absence of common sense.
I recognize that this is not everyone's
For example, those people
idea of a hot time. They can-
recently
stranded overnight
not understand why I simply
on
the
tarmac
of a small
don't jump on a plane to Logan
Minnesota
airport
to which
International and be at my
they
had
been
diverted
by
destination in a couple of hours
weather.
The
representative
of
— plus check-in, nervous
another
airline
refused
to
let
stomach and baggage retrieval
them deplane because security
time, of course.
personnel had gone home.
There are many reasons.
Federal rules allow for just
Driving to me is the most relax-
such
a situation by holding
ing, most fulfilling way of see-
passengers
in a "sanitized"
ing the country: A road in front
portion
of
the
terminal until
of me, the radio or CD player
they
can
continue
their jour-
pumping out music I prefer, a
ney.
One
that
would
have, at
sense of discovery, a landscape
least, included access to toilets
emerging from the next bend in
and the ability to move around a bit. This
the highway that can be breath-taking.
guy never got the news, though. I bet that
Most of all, however, is what I call the
happens to him a lot.
Random Idiot theory of travel.
I've been stranded overnight by storms
On any trip, there is a chance that things
1,000 miles away. By computers breaking
can go wrong. It just seems that traveling

down. By crews who had stayed on duty
longer than their work rules allowed.
Flying has become one of the most
unpleasant activities imaginable. And even
when it was good it wasn't all that great.
It's more than that, though. We have
become so destination oriented in
America that we have lost all patience
with what lies between. Flying over the
land cannot substitute for watching it
pass right outside your car window, feel-
ing it beneath your shoes, listening to its
sounds, looking up at the color of its skies.
In Israel, children are trained from early
life to embrace an intimacy with the land,
to give true meaning to a song written on
these shores: "This Land Is Your Land." It
is institutionalized in the national culture.
But thousands of young people from
our community visit Caribbean resorts or
artificial concoctions like Disney World or
Las Vegas, before knowing or understand-
ing the wonders close at hand.
Last year, for example, on a short stay at
Niagara Falls, I saw hordes of Asian tour-
ists, lots of Europeans (clearly identifiable

by their sandals and sweat socks), but
almost no one wearing jackets or T-shirts
associated with Michigan — just four
hours away by car.
On our trip to Boston, we will spend
a night in New York's Finger Lakes, walk
around Saratoga Springs, take a day in the
Berkshires of Massachusetts and then end
up in a winery bed-and-breakfast over-
looking Seneca Lake.
We'll set our own arrival and departure
schedules. We will not have to pay an
extra $80 to check our suitcases and no
one will go pawing through them. I won't
have to stand shoeless with my arms
extended while some guy runs a wand
over my two artificial hips, which set off
security devices like a terrorist about to
run amok.
And I will feel connected once more to
a land of infinite beauty and history. Your
land. My land.

❑

George Cantor's e-mail address is

gcantor614@aol.com .

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