Kate Scannell, MD

By Kate Scannell, MD
First Published in Print: 11/11/2012

President Barack Obama's health care reform law survived a couple of brutal battles this year. In the first major match of 2012, we watched 27 states try to kill the Affordable Care Act in the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming that it violated constitutional law. The punch line, however, was delivered in a 5-4 decision that left most of the act standing as the supreme law of the land.

Bruised but not broken, the health care act then began slouching toward November, through blistering bipartisan bickering, facing peril of extinction should Obama lose the election. Indeed, Republican candidate Mitt Romney had promised to begin repealing the act on his very first day in office.

But with Obama's re-election last week, the embattled health care act was again resuscitated and restored to health. And because the act was such an integral feature of Obama's campaign platform, American voters provided much of the saving life support for Obamacare.  Read More 

By Dr. Kate Scannell, Syndicated Columnist
First Published in Print: 07/21/2012

Last Tuesday, I was eating lunch in a downtown Oakland diner when a 20-something man entered and politely asked the owner for work -- any work at all. The owner apologized profusely, regretting that he had no employment to offer.

Minutes later, a woman and her daughter sat down at a nearby table and carefully counted what coins they carried -- ostensibly assessing whether they could afford a lunch plate. After the daughter asked, "Do we have enough?" the mother replied, "no," and they left the restaurant, declining an offer of help.

On my way out, I told the owner that I had overheard his conversation with the job seeker. "Awfully hard times," I said.

The owner shook his head and said that he had never had so many people seeking work. And that he had never felt so helpless. "Business is down here, everywhere," he said. "We have no jobs to offer. Last week, a young man with an M.A. came in, begging to work in my kitchen."

As we talked, an elderly woman passed by, pushing a shopping cart stuffed with garbage bags. Echoing a commonly heard refrain, the diner's owner charged, "Washington politicians have no idea what it's really like for most of us. To survive -- find work, live in a safe place, get decent health care -- they just have no idea."

At home that evening, I kept thinking about people from the diner. It had been painfully obvious that they were struggling mightily -- for a $3.50 lunch special, a minimum-wage job, a small business establishment on a worn corner of Oakland. Were these people and their struggles really invisible to "Washington politicians?"

You almost want to believe that's true because the alternative -- politicians seeing but doing little to help -- is even more dispiriting. Still, on street corners across America, joblessness and economic insecurity are on hard to ignore.

Perhaps the seeming invisibility of careworn Americans is a byproduct of cognitive dissonance. That is, while our eyes might detect a family rummaging through garbage bins along Main Street, our brain rejects that as possible; it simply couldn't -- and shouldn't -- be happening in the world's wealthiest nation.

Regardless -- whether unseen, or seen but disbelieved -- impoverished Americans exist, and their ranks are growing. Recent U.S. census data reveal that in 2010 our country's poverty rate jumped to 15 percent -- representing more than 48 million Americans.

Of course, it is not only politicians who may have blind spots on this issue. But it is to them that we look for moral leadership and problem-solving when so many millions of us urgently need a helping hand. Serving as our governmental representatives, they are supposed to be of us, for us, and by us. All of us.

That's why it's so disturbing to hear that several states are threatening to boycott Medicaid expansion as proposed by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) -- our nation's new health care reform law.  Read More 

By Dr. Kate Scannell, Syndicated Columnist
First Published in Print: 01/23/2011

IF THE ongoing ... ongoing ... and ongoing debates about repealing the Obama administration's new health care law causes you to feel weary or disoriented, a quick visit to "The Winchester Mystery House" could set you straight. This popular tourist attraction in San Jose is just the ticket for an invigorating education about the American health care system. It can make anyone feel more confident about surviving the deadening clamor of the current disputes.

The first thing to appreciate about the Winchester Mystery House is that it continues to stand despite its original owner's obsession with constant architectural renovations. Legend claims that Mrs. Winchester conducted nightly séances to divine home-remodeling tips that would allow her to elude and confuse "bad spirits." Her compulsive need for self-protection meant constant and unwieldy revisions to her home.

Consequently, at one point the Winchester home contained at least 500 separate rooms of varied shapes and sizes. Stairways that bluntly ended at ceilings. Chimneys that ascended short of the roof. Doors that opened to nowhere. As the home's official website describes: "The miles of twisting hallways are made even more intriguing by secret passageways in the walls. Mrs. Winchester traveled through her house in a roundabout fashion, supposedly to confuse any mischievous ghosts that might be following her."

We are kin to Mrs. Winchester as we continuously amass disconnected health care policies under one old roof and choose to think of our ramshackle construction as a unitary "system."

We never get the foundation right because we always listen to the loudest political spirits of the day and take their piecemeal advice. We pass innumerable health care laws and regulations that are so mind-boggling and labyrinthine to navigate, that we often give up the ghost trying. Meanwhile, as individuals and as a nation, we pay a hefty premium for the thrill of it all.

In other words, the Winchester Mystery House looks a lot like our American health care system.

But the Winchester house uniquely offers visitors the opportunity to experience chaos and structural anarchy without suffering apoplectic fits. In fact,  Read More