On Health Care Reform and Town Hall Meetings
An author friend of mine was scheduled to be interviewed on a national cable channel news show this morning but was preempted by all the late breaking hoopla over the health care reform plan. The town hall meetings are consuming the news reporting at every level.
I can’t observe this national reaction without thinking about how beneficial it would be for Americans to get that spun up about the war on cancer. Over 12 million Americans are presently being treated for cancer. Each year, about 560,000 of them die of the disease. Today over 1500 of our friends, neighbors, and relatives will die the ugly and excruciating death from cancer.
I know it’s a dream, but if we could win a victory over this enemy, we would have 12 million fewer people using the most expensive and manpower intensive health care in the country. It would free up thousands of physicians and medical facilities. It would lower insurance rates substantially, and it would allow increased supply, and thus lower prices, of drugs for other treatments. I don’t believe it’s an unreasonable leap to say that, if we could factor out cancer, there wouldn’t be any health crisis.
At least one of the principal elements of health care reform should be to reform the war on cancer. President Obama should reaffirm the 1971 cancer war declaration of President Nixon. Then he should take the war to Congress and the public in the way that he can do so masterfully. Actually, I believe he would find a gentler audience.