Change is Coming

Yesterday, November 7th 2009 marked a very important day in our nations history.

The House of Representatives passed the Health Care Reform bill 220 to 215.

As the Senate preps to begin the discussion about Health Care Reform I can't help but wonder what is going to happen to the bill. I was at work last night when the final vote came in and celebrated with myself and my twitter friends while riding the bus home.

Now that the light of morning has hit us, I wonder what is the future of health care in our country. Nearly all Americans can agree that the current system is not working, but where do we go?

I started reading over HR 3962 again yesterday morning in prep of the vote and well... it's lengthy and rather dry. If the Senate passes it's own Health Care bill, medical professionals, lawyers and us social workers, are going to have a lot of reading ahead of us. This is huge. CNN calls it the "biggest expansion of health care coverage since Medicare was created more than 40 years ago."

That is pretty impressive.

I worry about something this massive being passed in the Senate. In all honesty, while I was going over parts of the bill yesterday I did not believe it would pass the House. Sure I called Rep. Shadegg, did my part full well knowing he would not support the bill, and that was it. I was sure the bill would fail especially after the abortion amendment was tacked on and that many Democrats were not supporting the bill.

I expected it to die.

Especially given how massive this is.

Change is hard. Most people do not like to experience any kind of change, being as small as changing up your daily routine, or as big as health care reform. We reject change because it is difficult and it breaks the status quo.

I remember from my Practice 2 class in undergrad learning about the stages of change and it feels like we're right between Preparation and Action. The passing of the bill in the House last night was a huge step towards taking Action to change, but we're not there yet.

In order for us to truly be in the Action stage we're going to need the Senate to vote for Health Care Reform.

I'm back to worrying though. I've got the numbers for my Senators, I know who to call, not that I think Kyl or McCain would support reform, but I still want them to know where my position is not only has a social worker who has seen hundreds of clients who are uninsured and how that affects their lives, but also as a constituent who has suffered as well. I've done the 3 hours phone call with my health insurance provider arguing that my trip to the emergency room was not a pre-existing condition and that they should cover it. I've watched the medical bills pile up at my parents house for a procedure that had my mother not had, might have killed her. We're all just one major health condition away from bankruptcy, yet I still feel that the Senate won't pass the bill.

We're afraid of change.

However, if the bill does pass, and President Obama does get to sign The Affordable Health Care for America Act into law, the Action Stage is going to huge.

That is where, we as social workers need to be reading up on this bill, even if you don't care about politics at all. The way we look at health care is going to change in its entirety and every client seen is going to be affected in some way. Social workers are going to need a basic understanding of how these changes affect their clients if we are going to be competent in practice.

If the Senate passes the bill, I see trainings in all of our futures.

It is going to be a lot of work, but I think we're ready. Change is really scary, but it can also be a great thing and I am ready to embrace that change.

We'll see where this all takes us, hopefully to somewhere good.

To read the bill in its entirety go here

To tweet your Senator about the health care bill go here

Let your voice be heard, if you support health care reform or your don't, your voice still matters and deserves to be heard.

Everyone have a wonderful Sunday.