On the First Day of Christmas Obama gave to me...

HEALTHCARE reform. Also known as Obamacare. I believe healthcare reform is needed. It is rediculous that a Tylenol costs over ten dollars at the hospital. Unfortunately, I have noticed that in the current battle over reform, I have not heard the term "quality of care" used. Not even once. The discussions all revolve around cost of health care, treatment option costs, lost revenue dollars, wasted funds and various other references to money. I don't know what the value of a human life might be. Some might say that all human life is of infinite value. Others might feel that the value of a life is determined by what a person has accomplished. I can't agree with that one, as I have seven grandkids, and I believe that each of them is of tremendous value. Still others would say that it is not possible to assign value to human life, because no dollar amount would make sense. The value in chemical composition is somewhere around $4.50 (depending on total skin area, as the skin is the most valuable part accounting for about $3.50 of the total). I find it impossible to assign a value. Nationalized Healthcare, on the other hand has assigned an exact figure for the value of a human life. NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) is the controlling group for the healthcare management in England. They have determined that the exact value of human life is sixty thousand pounds per year. By their accounting, a citizen is worth exactly $89,913.31 US dollars at todays exchange rate. The upside is that the value is constant regardless of age, accomplishment, state of physical or mental health, sexual orientation, race, religion or wealth. The downside is that if one has a disease or ailment which will cost more than that amount to treat in a given year HEALTHCARE IS WITHHELD. There is not an option to pay the difference out of pocket, or draw against the past years when there were no healthcare costs or draw against future years. TREATMENT IS WITHHELD. The wealthy can certainly fly out of country to get treatment elsewhere, but no treatment is available within England. Why do I, a good US citizen care about the English healthcare system? Because Obamacare is modeled on this system to some extent. It has been popular by Obama's Army to say that it would not be the same here, and that those limits would not be imposed, but they also have said "pass a watered down bill now and make the changes in the future" (not an exact quote). The big problem here is the value of a citizen. Once Obamacare is passed and millions of currently privately insured citizens are dumped off their current policies and are forced into government insurance, where costs are capped etc, those citizens will take advantage of the system much as medicare citizens do today. They will have more tests, more treatments and spend more time with doctors. This will lead to two things. Fewer new doctors, as the new and improved insurance will limit the earning potential of medical workers, and more patients. These two, when combined, are a perfect scenario for medical service rationing. Rationing is a fancy term for determining the value of a citizen. Once we get there, you will know exactly what you are worth regardless of what you are paid.