It is long overdue to challenge the dark secret about our healthcare system: We are not getting quality healthcare services, and more than 47 million Americans can't afford any health insurance coverage.

Poor Americans receive Medicaid, but too many experience inferior medical care. Also, lots of health care providers and doctors don't want to accept Medicaid payments, which attempts to place limits on medical charges.

Retired Americans depend upon Medicare to meet medical needs, but there are serious gaps and limitations in the coverage. Middle class retired citizens can't afford to pay for the care available in Nursing Homes or Long Term Care Facilities.

Many of our hospitals are poorly run, have high mortality and infection rates, and are in fact terrible places in which to die. The quality of our health care in this nation seems to be totally dependent on one's ability to pay.

But prescription costs, doctor visits, mental health services, and surgical care are starting to place a huge financial burden on all of us.

The rich can afford to pay for high medical costs, the middle class is experiencing inconsistent care, and the poor depend on what they get in our emergency rooms.

Unfortunately, too many doctors and hospitals have become so busy that human emotions, compassion, and sensitivity have become lost in the shuffle.

Too often, pills, computers, and specialized machines have become substitutes for the health care professional's time and attitude of tender loving care. It is time that we do something positive to reform are whole health care system.

Now that we have been honest and open about the problem, let's go to the next steps on The Emotional Recovery Card. (EMC is my unique life coaching approach to personal and social change.)

Stop and Think:

Let's stop approaching health care from the point of view of one's ability to pay or as some simple commodity at the whims of our market economy. Health care should become a basic human right. So, let's stop and think more about that.

Face Triggers:

We need to face our red flags, and see the private health insurance industry for what it really is: a business that seeks to make a profit from healthy people who don't need it very often.

These corporations just keep striving to reduce coverage for "pre-conditions", and they lobby against legislation to extend national coverage to the sick, poor, and elderly.

Some hospitals are red flags, because they are corporations who profit from becoming more specialized, bureaucratized, mechanized, and computerized.

Then there are the doctors who become red flags. Some dance with the dark secret of unlimited wealth, rather than embracing their oath to do no harm to others in desperate need of treatment.

Our government is a red flag because for too long it has submitted to the will of medical lobbyists, insurance corporations, and pharmaceutical companies.

Why can't government be more sensitive to the needs of a majority of Americans buckling under the strain of our health care crisis?

Face Feelings:

Possibly, the healthcare industry and our own federal government are simply too fearful to try new approaches to reform and change.

I assume they don't want to lose money, power, or influence. It makes me angry to sense they refuse to face their own dark secrets.

They claim a national health care system would decrease the quality of health care by taking away the profit motive. Of course, they avoid facing the fact that the profit motive is precisely the cause of our health care crisis.

It is sad to think that CEO's of these corporations are making six figure incomes off the suffering of more than 47 million Americans who don't have any health care coverage. How do you really feel about that?

And why do our political and business leaders seem so reluctant to look at the pros and cons of national health systems in Canada, the Netherlands, England, Germany and other European nations?

Can we forgive ourselves for thinking, believing, and pretending that our health care system based on profit is better than theirs?

Admit Powerlessness:

We as individuals are powerless to change the system by ourselves. We remain at the mercy of the insurance companies who cancel our coverage because we have AIDS, Cancer, or some other expensive and catastrophic illness.

We can't seem to budge certain hospitals that have turned medical care into assembly lines for beds, and patient charts, rather than a haven for love, compassion, and healing.

Many of us are powerless to change the medical profession and pharmaceutical industry, which say the market economy must determine the price for all health care costs.

At times, we can become hopeless or apathetic about professional politicians who are dependent on political contributions from the health care industry to get the money they need to stay in office.

I will complete our discussion of healthcare reform in my next article: Challenging the Dark Secret About Healthcare.

About the Author

Mr. Eby currently works as a therapsit and counselor at Options for Southern Oregon, the local mental health agency. He is a Master Social Worker with more than 37 years of professional experience. For more information visit: http://www.challengedarksecret.com .