It’s the touch of human skin to human skin that makes the difference.

We can throw all of the money we have into healthcare.  Our nation can mortgage itself  to unfathomable depths.  But it is still that human-to-human touch that will determine how we heal the sick and comfort the dying.

Television and radio commercials for prescription medicine tell us to ask for a certain medication.  The pitch takes twenty seconds, and there are forty seconds of warning of what might happen to use if we take it.  I’ve heard from several physicians who say they see patients every day, who ask for prescription medication by name. These new drugs often do no better, or make no significant difference than some of the older medications that are available in cheaper, more generic form.

Some insurance companies are under scrutiny because of wildly increasing premiums.  It gives supporters of the current healthcare proposal ammunition.  And if you have diabetes, or have recently been diagnosed with cancer, or any number of other health problems, and you try to get private healthcare insurance- good luck.

No, a guarantee of healthcare is not in The Constitution Of The United States.  But in a nation where plane loads of relief are sent overseas, and our private citizens raise a billion dollars in donations for earthquake victims, how can we not help our fellow citizens who are at the end of their rope, sick, no money, and no way to be insured?   It’s not a question of constitutionality, but of compassion.

Pain “script clinics” need to be shut down.  Florida has two hundred such clinics( and permits pending for more) where people pay a few hundred dollars for an MRI, a couple of hundred bucks for a doctor to write a prescription for narcotics, and off the “patient” goes with ninety or a hundred-twenty Oxycontin, Lortab, or other pain medication.  That, say,  five hundred dollars gets them sometimes forty bucks for every pill.  Do the math.  Everybody makes money on that misery.  I believe every individual involved in that “pain train” should be locked up, from street dealer to clinic owner.

I think there were a couple of men in the Old Testament who did not die.  But the rest of us are bound to suffer death.  Some of us will mercifully suffer a quick demise.  Others, are bound for a long slide into death.  We have to pay attention to end of life care, to comfort those who have no hope, to make sure everything possible is done for them.  But God help us if we start deciding who lives and who dies.  And for those who don’t want to give up hope, who want to fight to the end, we need to stop whining about its cost, and help them.  I have come about a close as I want to be to death, and I can tell you, it is scary.  Again, I say the touch and kind voice of a human being means all the world in that time.

(Oh, and this side note:  Sometimes you might think someone under heavy medication, maybe in ICU cannot hear or understand.  You might be right.  But from personal experience, I can tell you the medication does not eliminate all of your sense of fear and anxiety, nor does it kill your sense of hearing. )

I can’t tell you what is in President Obama’s healthcare reform bill.  And I would wager my insurance premium for this month that most of our lawmakers have no clue, either.

Now, The President has set a deadline of March 18th for Congress to pass healthcare legislation.  Know why?  Because the artificial deadline has been set in order to get the bill passed before your lawmakers come home for spring recess.  Again, that insurance premium bet is on the line when I wager that our lawmakers will get an earful when they come home to their districts.

In earlier times, I’d start to hammer out a news story on an old Royal 440 typewriter.   Sometimes, about halfway through, I would realize what I had typed was a piece of doo doo, grab the rough pulp paper by the top..and whizz it through the typewriter platen, wad the paper up and toss it into the can.  That new, blank sheet of paper looked so much better than the earlier copy- because I didn’t have to strike over, pencil in, mark out…or even worse, try to write my way out of a hole.

It seems like such a simple thing to do… take a flawed piece of legislation that deals with a seventh of our national economy….stop the political fight over it…and throw it in the can.  Hit the delete button.

Start over.

A clean piece of paper with what the people need, what we can afford, and something all of us can understand.

It’s kind of like the human touch.  Sounds easy and simple, makes sense…but is often forgotten.