REACT

She rarely has a minute to chat.

She's an Educator. Administrator. Health care provider. Nurturer. Confidante. Coach. Counselor.

Problem-solver.

24/7.

Yes, she is a mom. A wife, daughter, sister, aunt, friend, neighbor.

Physician.

Time devoted to chatting must be scheduled, so her call was unexpected.  

It came mid-morning, as attorneys argued before the Supreme Court that the health care mandate was unconstitutional and should be struck down.

PHYSICIAN: (agitated) Do you have a minute?

ME:  (concerned) What's wrong?

PHYSICIAN: I had a patient yesterday, young guy, early forties. Can't work anymore. Lost his leg.

Lost his job.

ME:  (Shocked silence.)

PHYSICIAN:  He left the office and I cried. I actually cried. He's forty something years old, and he loses his leg to diabetes. To diabetes!

ME:  (Still shocked. Ditto silent.)

PHYSICIAN:  A manageable disease that got out of control! Simple medications could have saved his leg, his job, his family. But he didn't have insurance, so he never had preventive care. When he came to see me yesterday, it was too late to help.

I begin to mumble something, then shut-up.

PHYSICIAN:  People don't understand! We're not a country that leaves the uninsured on the street. We don't kick sick people out of the ER. We take care of them, and every one of us pays the staggering costs for all those illnesses, tests and treatments that would often never happen if people had preventive care.

Physician was incensed. She talked about patients who demand and receive unnecessary CT Scans and MRIs - to the tune of $210 billion a year spent on 'overtesting' - while others can't afford vaccines or cancer treatments for their children.  

And then as abruptly as the conversation began, it ended after one final thought.

PHYSICIAN:  The individual mandate isn't going to fix all our unsustainable health care spending. But preventive care is critical. If people are required to have insurance, insurance companies stay in business, and everyone gets preventive care. Someone must remind Americans that one way or another, we all pay the bill for the uninsured. If we pay it early on, most of us win.  If we wait till it's too late, everyone loses. 

Some more than others.

Like Physician's diabetic patient.

Election 2012 is in full swing. 

Who's in, who's out? Who's up, who's down. Who's courting, who's offending?

Today's special? Partisan strategists create yet another silly division between stay-at-home moms and working moms.

POTUS assures Americans that there's no tougher job than being a mom. He's watched the first lady work inside the home - when she wasn't working outside the home - and it is hard work!

CNN's token democratic stay-at-home mom is outraged.  Foxes' token republican working-mom is disgusted.

It's Reaction to Overreaction. At Star Ship Enterprise speed.

The next seven months will be all about winning. Who wins, and how?

Rather than employing the same old strategy of Spin to Win, let's adopt novel strategies like Educate to Win.  Innovate to Win.  Compromise to Win.

  

Spin to Win has achieved the same tired result year after year- reaction leads to overreaction, while critical issues are ignored or back-burnered.

Imagine if politicians and their strategists spent April to November working to spinlessly educate Americans about critical issues; proposing innovative solutions and workable compromises to manage them.

Imagine if the electorate took the time to learn about these critical issues, to consider both candidates' solutions and compromises, and vote for he or she who will best lead and unite the nation - rather than the D or the R.

Come election day, America wins.

Big.

Our problems aren't simple. But many are preventable.

Most are manageable, if controlled.

As Election 2012 spins into even greater discord and partisanship, someone must remind Americans that one way or another, we all pay the bill for the uninformed.

QUING Hereby Decrees:  One way or another, we all pay the bill for the uninformed.