Healthcare and Political War Games

Healthcare has become a political war game. 

Ideally, many political ideologies and parties should emerge in our country and have a fair chance of catching on, but instead all political sentiments are forced into one of two major parties. 

For example, nationalist thinking is now at one end of the Republican spectrum and extreme socialist thinking has become one end of the Democratic Party spectrum. But neither of these two parties was meant to include extreme ideologies. 

This trend exists across the board for every country today. It’s a form of political fascism. Some call it politics within politics and others call it political profiling. The theory behind it is similar to when you want to move herd of cattle: It is easier to collect them in one location and move them through the tunnel to the slaughterhouse in groups. 

Patients and physicians are tired of political games. But some still strongly believe that healthcare can be solved through politics, but it has become a tool for politicians to win elections.

Healthcare policies only focus on cost and reimbursement, and ignore important issues like physician burnout, disappearing independent physician practices, certification, patient access to care and other considerations. 

Throwing money at insurance companies—the way politicians do--is not the same as providing quality healthcare. 

Others may feel differently and believe healthcare problems can only be solved by twisting arms, creating mandates and raising taxes.

Some believe healthcare is a fundamental right, but others see it as a monopoly and a business. Some feel healthcare is a mission. 

Regardless of what we believe, there is a case of tunnel vision that has affected our society. All we see is a superficial, idealistic picture of what healthcare is and must look like. There is no doubt that there is enough money for healthcare, there is enough knowledge, technology and ability to deliver quality care to everyone. 

But there are not enough rich people to twist arm and tax or politicians’ to bribe through lobbying to cover healthcare costs, and if we don’t stop the bleeding of money and put a stop to over-inflated costs we won’t be able to fix the problems.

Political fascism and monopolies are not going to help us. Copying and creating a modified totalitarian model is destined to failure. 

These models would work if the majority of our planet’s population was illiterate, but we are living in the Internet era, where everyone has nearly unlimited access to information.

People today are more educated and liberated, and healthcare needs to keep up with people.

But the political environment is changing not just in the US but all over the world,              as the result of interconnectedness of information. But political fighting and segregation is becoming fiercer. 

As the result of this fierce fighting, physicians are becoming discouraged, burned out and distrustful of the system. Patients are also frustrated and cannot access quality healthcare for an affordable cost even with insurance.

Healthcare is being held hostage by political gangs, and has become a mere stepping stone to get votes to gain power to benefit the few.

Some claim that healthcare is a basic human right, but one that’s realized through college paid for by others. Is it really a fundamental right if it’s at the expense of others?

Health care coverage is not equal to quality healthcare.

Profiling and fascism is wrong for every aspect of our lives because these things breed radicalism and close mindedness. Today, in many countries, politics and political parties have become bundled, and the full spectrum of ideologies has been forced into these bundles.

For example, nationalist racist groups tend have occupied the extreme end of the spectrum of the Republican party. On the other end, extreme socialists and totalitarians occupy the extreme end of the Democratic Party spectrum. None of the major political parties ever intended to be radicalized or to support any radical behavior. However, it has happened. If we could break this down and provide equal opportunity for smaller groups, ideologies and individuals to thrive it would eliminate many complications associated with the bundling of political parties.

If a nationalist president ran as an independent he or she would never succeed in today’s environment. However, if they ran under the umbrella of Republican Party, he or she could succeed because they will win the votes of the constituents from other parts of the political spectrum.

This scenario applies to healthcare too. Everyone wants quality healthcare, and everyone has the right to stay healthy. But not necessarily with the help of a middleman or politician, and not at the expense of fellow citizens.

I believe in transparency, accountability and the preservation of individual opportunity. The era of cookie cutter healthcare by political agenda is old and is destined to fail.

The individual has the right to choose the quality of life he or she wants based on the options provided to him or her by his or her physician, not options mandated by politicians playing political war games.