It Not About Ideology: It’s About What Could Work

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

Jonathan Hiadt has become a very popular author during these difficult times of “class warfare.” In “Righteous Minds” he posits that both the Right and the Left think they are correct about political, social and economic issues. Since the opinions of each are usually opposite disputes occur.

His point is that the Right and the Left need to understand reasons for each groups’ thinking. It might result in tolerance and respect by each side for each other.

I sense a definite leaning toward the Left in his presentation with his condescending attitude toward the Right.

In this political season I have a problem with siding with either the Right or the Left in their political arguments. My impression is both sides are wrong with the Left being more wrong than the Right.

Both sides are trying to condition our minds to side with them. This should indicate how powerful the people really are.

George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan are dirty words to most of the Left.

The Left has demonized George W. Bush and Ronal Reagan because their thinking is not compatible with the thinking of the Left.

The Right loves Ronald Reagan and seems to be a little embarrassed by the mention of George W. Bush.

No one should be embarrassed about George W. He claimed to be a Compassionate Conservative. This phrase drove the Left crazy. George W. co-opted the Left’s claim to fame with the word compassionate.

The Left leaning media was frenzied about it for 8 years.  George W’s problem was he let some vested interests get too strong to the detriment of all Americans.

What is President Obama doing? He promised to “Transform America.” He is driving the Right leaning media crazy. Many Americans sense President Obama’s transformation. Americans do not like President Obama’s interpretation of transformation.

President Obama is increasing government control and decreasing our freedoms. Americans sense that our living standards are worse, our way of life is becoming difficult, the way we think about ourselves as a nation has become unpleasant and economy has gotten worse.

President Obama is also bending the rules to serve his ideological thinking. There is a growing mistrust of him because of his methodology and his ideology. The traditional media appears to be on the President’s side. The traditional media is terrified. They are losing their audience and in turn their ability to make a profit.

To me is all about media manipulation. The media’s agenda is to reach as large an audience as possible. Once this is achieved it can sell advertising space and make as much profit as possible.

The media wants to make a horserace out of every piece of “news” and a scandal out of every piece of non-news. The media on both the Right and the Left omit “news” that doesn’t fit its ideological agenda.

Think about it. This is the reason all political campaign are so expensive. If there were significant campaign finance reform the media would go bankrupt.

Politicians have to become media actors to win the hearts and souls of Americans. This was never more noticeable between and extremely articulate Barack Obama and a relatively inarticulate John McCain and a politically unschooled Sarah Palin.  Politicians have to appear to know something and stay on script.

Folks, we nave been brain washed. 

The most important asset we have as humans is our health. Systems have developed over the past 60 years in medicine that have improved our health and longevity. 

These same systems have launched vast industries and sub-industries that suck the money out of the system.

Where does the money go? Only 10% of the healthcare dollars spent go to physicians. The rest of the healthcare dollars goes to the secondary stakeholders (the middlemen) that add little value to the treatment of disease.

It is up to the people to become engaged in the political system and say we want a healthcare system that works and does not waste money.

We want a consumer driven healthcare system between consumers and physicians.

We want public service announcements that teach us how to drive the system and achieve the advantage of scale.

We do not want the government to make decisions for us.

We want to have the ability to make our own decisions.

We want to have control over our own destiny.

We want to have control over our healthcare dollar.

We want to have economic incentives to make our own medical choices.

We want to have pride in our nation,

We wanted to have trust in our government.

Todd Siler’s three guiding principles says it all:

Consumers must take responsibility for their medical care and their healthcare dollars. My Medical Savings Account will go a long way to bring this about.

Consumers are the only ones that can make elected officials run our government in a way that supports these guiding principles.

The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone

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