The Left-Right Divide on Health Care

Many are currently shaking their heads at the political divide in the United States. Various media outlets, on both sides, are fanning the flames of divisiveness, working against political solutions to the real problems that are in front of us.

I am wondering why some public person isn't standing up in the Health Care debate and asking why both sides have not already enacted a law that includes the 80% areas of agreement--so the people will have something--before going on to work on areas of disagreement. I can only conclude that they all--Both Sides--desire to be obstreperous as opposed to solve problems. Is not solving problems the reason we elected them?

Another matter, again in the health care arena, is the conspiracy theory of vaccinations. Presumably this was originated by people deep into their own paranoia, and circulated by people with little understanding of statistics or risk assessment.

Let's look at both those issues. Realistically, despite some rare books, television shows and movies, the United States government is not knowingly developing vaccines to harm its people.

Now, the risk assessment. You always look at the alternative or alternatives.

What happens if a major flu outbreak occurs and we do not have the populace immune to it? Massive fatalities, even more missed work days, family tragedies, economic and social losses. If we vaccinate the people, we avoid an estimated 60 million deaths.

Now, look at one alternative, the rare incidence of negative response to any vaccine. Yes, we have rare negative responses to existing vaccines. Most likely there will be a similar rate of negative responses. These responses are less than one event per thousand vaccine doses given. The negative consequences of widespread infection with this H1N1 virus is likely to be hundreds of major incidences of sickness and death for the same group. Thus the consequences without the vaccine will likely be hundreds or thousands of times worse than using the vaccine.

Now, look at many people in the target high risk groups opting out of taking the vaccine. If just a couple opt out, fine. If many opt out, we end up having a reservoir of people who are susceptible to the virus, and they dwell among us much like storing cans of gasoline next to a furnace--once they contract the disease there will be no stopping point. The entire nation will be hit.

I hope that more reasoned and responsible voices are heard on these matters.

Lalia