Lucky Lotto winner receives . . . an all-paid trip to the emergency room?

This is a truly sad commentary on the state of health care in America, that a lottery for the uninsured could be perceived as a positive response to the ongoing crisis . . .

"This is such a wonderful opportunity," said Ellen Pinney, director of the Oregon Health Action Campaign. "We've heard absolutely no complaints, just a lot of hope that they are the ones who will be selected."

Yes . . . and here is my hope, that some day we come to our senses and finally admit that the reason our annual health-care costs escalate at triple or more the rate of inflation even as our overall health scores among the lowest among industrialized states and our rate of dissatisfaction among the highest--with 47 million of us are left out of the system altogether (now that's what I call rationing)--has everything to do with profit maximizing and political influence. The most common-sense approach to paying for this public good, via a single payer (not socialized medicine please note) dares not speak its name in our culture. Can we cut off the propaganda IV from for-profit health care lobbyists for a second and take a gander at the astonishing personal enrichment of health care and big pharma middle to upper management and then talk about truly reforming this system?

The true nature even of the debate has been cynically shifted. It's true health insurance is not a human right, who cares? Health care is. Treatment for injury and illness is. No one knows when they will be unlucky enough to be a victim of a crime or a housefire, but no one expects for-profit police or firefighters to respond to those personal crises. We share the risk and the public good by contributing with our tax dollars to a social service which cannot be properly provided by free market forces. Health care should be treated like a public good, at the minimum, like a public utility. Getting the profit vultures out of the system is the most sensible road to achieving equitable care for all. We cannot even discuss that option in this culture.

I guess given the parameters of that "debate," a lottery for health care makes about as much sense as anything else.

In the meantime, here's hoping you never have to actually use your health insurance.