As Americans warm to the idea of a greater role for the government in health care, there's a difference between saying that everyone is entitled to health insurance and a plan to make that possible.
Health Insurance and Costs
Even if the county ever gets a medical school, it is a long-term goal years away and many low-income patients need solutions now.
For years Merced County has struggled to convince doctors to come live and work in the rural, impoverished Central Valley community, resulting in a ratio of about 45 doctors for every 100,000 residents.
Horisons Unlimited Health Care filed for bankruptcy and closed all eight of its clinics, including five in Merced County. About 80 percent of Horisons patients were on Medi-Cal.
September 30 is the deadline for renewing coverage for about 9 million children nationwide, and there's been a flurry of media pieces pointing to this month's expiration date. But, is this federally-funded program really in jeopardy?
Suggestions of health insurance policies with skimpy benefits and higher out-of-pocket costs might reduce part of the health insurance cost equation, but is that the kind of insurance system Americans really want?
While the quest to repeal the Affordable Care Act is dead for now, many disabled Americans say the fight for their health care -- and the other fundamental rights it guarantees by extension -- is never really over.
While access to insurance coverage remains a national debate, in the San Joaquin Valley, getting to see a doctor isn’t always easy, even for people who have coverage.
This Silicon Valley response to medical care should make large health systems squirm and might force them to modernize in response to this new challenge.
The U.S. needs to seriously examine what the national health systems of peer countries like France, Germany, and the U.K. do best and make those ideas work here.