The Health Care We Deserve

The givens: our country over decades has jerry-built a health care “system” that is unfair and inefficient. We pay far more for far less care than any other industrialized nation. And we have forty million people uninsured for whom a major illness can mean mortgaging a home, not sending a kid to college, or worse.

Now the country is finally beginning to address health care reform in a meaningful way, in what could well be the most important domestic policy debate since the New Deal.

When the Lights Went On

I just had cataract surgery. The doctor replaced the clouded lenses in my eyes with high-tech plastic. The results were amazing. In the supermarket I stood in shock, trying to absorb the real colors of vegetables and fruits. Outside, the Olympic mountains, 30 miles west, jumped into my front yard. That first night, I turned on the lights in a darkened kitchen and it was as if someone had replaced 60-watt bulbs with 100s.

The thing is, my sight had deteriorated so slowly that I’d never understood the depth of the problem. I’d just walked up closer to read signs. I'd just assumed that colors were as I perceived them.

I’m not here to tell you about my eyes. But cataracts are a great metaphor for the steadily clouding lenses through which I, and I think many others, viewed what was going on in this  country until the recession switched on some very bright lights.