Can you partially fix "Partially Broken" ?

I've been following all of the news and discussions on the state of healthcare in America. Not only are there too many cooks in the kitchen spoiling the broth, but no one knows how to cook! Today, a very intelligent friend of mine explained some of the finer points in detail. What it boils down to is that only parts of the insurance industry are broken, and Medicaid and Medicare are so full of fraud, corruption and loopholes that it will be very difficult to fix them, and throwing money at the problem is not its solution. Healthcare represents a whopping 1/5 of our entire economy, and if we screw up fixing it, it could have severe ramifications as the ripple effect echoes through the other 4/5ths.

She is a comedian, and asks some serious questions, that while funny, also point to big pieces of the problem. She asked me (rhetorically, of course), "This is a HUGE problem. The economy is a HUGE problem. When Congress was discussing the 'stimulus options' why on EARTH did we 'need to have a plan by this weekend'??" She likened it this way: "The plan was 1000 pages long. That's a lot of pages. A college freshman gets half a semester to write a 10 page term paper, and we are asking Congress to read something 1000 pages long in a week that could effect our economy for DECADES?? What's wrong with this picture?" To which I replied, "Didn't our parents always warn us never to sign a document without reading it first?"

Healthcare is important. The decisions made will affect us all. Get informed. Choose a side, and then fight for that side. If you would rather have a system in place with some things that don't work, fine. If you want our country to "turn into Sweden" as she put it, that's your choice, too. One point she was trying to make is that our system can't be that bad if all of the leaders of other wealthy countries who have healthcare systems in their own countries come here to get treated. What does that say about our system? It can't be THAT bad. Until now, the quality of our healthcare has not been an issue (for the most part). The overall system itself does not seem 'completely broken.' It'sthe costs and execution that are the problem.

The way the system is operating affects me now, because I've become one of the people who has to buy their own healthcare. I've been unemployed for so long that my COBRA coverage ran out. I lost my job on a time line that does not fall under coverage by Obama's measures, so I didn't get a subsidy. I'm on my own. And even with insurance, I have to pray that I don't get catastrophically ill. But at the same time, I have been able to FIND insurance and GET it. I'm one of the lucky ones.

This isn't meant to spark a debate. I still haven't even publicly picked a side. I just had a very interesting, very passionate conversation with someone on a topic that will affect us or our families at one point or another. It's what I did today that was even remotely interesting. Other than a load of laundry. Yes mom, my sheets are clean~~and I even made hospital corners!