Who Could Love Me?

I just had an argument with my mother and sister about Health Reform, that baby that seems to be stuck in the Congressional delivery room. So, as with any difficult birth, we prepare for the worst while still hoping for so much...

Anyway, I should never have gotten into it with them, since it was only moments before they were trashing the health insurance industry. They were not being uniquely perverse: almost everyone blames private insurance for our country's health woes. (After all, we get outraged at our insurer who refuses to pay for a $50K surgery with a marginal success rate. Why don't we think it legitimate to ask the surgeon to lower his price?) The basic mantra is: Other countries have successful, cheap, nationally-funded, guaranteed health care. Why can't we?

I don't know. The United States is the outlier in so many ways, some good, some bad. But the plaint above has a lot in common with that of many teen-age boys (of whom I was one):

i'm covered with acne i've got bad breath so i'll never ever get a date. of course not. but still... maybe, just maybe, some girl— a pretty, pretty girl, too— could love the inner me. which is, unfortunately, kind of a horny weasel and not all that great...

So why can't we have a decent health care system, like all those other countries do? There could be many reasons. And perhaps we can change. But maybe it's just that we're ugly and don't really deserve it.