Hold on to your wallets, folks. 

The stock market has been on a winning streak and Wall Street is starting to feel its oats once again.  Yes, you guessed it, those same people who brought us the biggest mess since the Depression because they convinced us that markets could defy gravity are again banging the drum with the message that the seeds of a recovery are starting to bloom.

Really? 

At this point the level of skepticism about anything Wall Street says should be so high that any positive remark sets off Geiger-counter-like beeping. Wall Streeters made tons of money after all by getting the maximum number of suckers to buy into the deals and bargains and can’t-lose situations they created, many times out of bubble soap.

They’re paid to highlight the seams of gold among the dross, no matter how much dross there is.   Need I tell you that dross is everywhere and any gold to be found is fool’s gold?

And when things go bust, well, that’s equities for you.  Seems there really was some risk involved after all.

As for the recovery, I know it doesn’t serve their purpose, but I suggest anyway that these financial wizards leave their towers and see what’s happening on the ground.  Down here, the recovery isn’t around the corner.  It hasn’t even gotten into town.

Agents and insurance companies know it; retailers know it; newspapers and magazines know it; manufacturers of goods and services of every stripe know it.  Things are terrible.  And if they’re not getting worse, they’re hardly getting better.  People all over are scared for their jobs and until that fear is allayed and the job market starts to come back, nothing much is going to change.  Here on the ground.  

There’s a good reason for the old adage “once bitten, twice shy.”  The collective ouch that our finances have experienced as a result of getting bitten should give us pause about getting close to this particular dog again.  Even if the dog is wagging its tail.

Caveat emptor.

It’s funny how thinking about the achievement of man’s walking on the moon 40 years ago puts almost everything else into a different perspective.

Such as why, for example, we still cannot ensure that every single person in this country has access to adequate health care.   

Granted this is in a larger category of experience, for instance, than your mom saying to you, “If we can put a man on the moon…why can’t you clean up your room?”  Or saying to your significant other, “If we can put a man on the moon…how come you mess up the checkbook every month?” 

On the other hand, health care matters a lot more than whether you’re a slob or are driven crazy by someone who can’t add and subtract. 

So, how is it, then, that in the 40 years since Neil Armstrong’s “giant leap for mankind,” the number of uninsured in this country has grown inexorably larger year after year? 

Defenders of the status quo will simply ignore the question and start ranting about how we have the best health care in the entire world and any move to seriously reform it is a step on the dreaded path to “socialized medicine.”

Now, I won’t argue that the quality of health care in this country is good, even very good.  The problem is that that’s not true for everyone and it is definitely not true for anyone who does not have coverage.

One question that never seems to get asked is whether we, as a people, would rather have the most superlative health care for some of the population or good basic coverage for the entire population. 

I recently had the occasion to call a specialist for an appointment.  I’d done my homework, which essentially meant finding out the answer to the all-important question: was the doctor in my network?

When I called his office and said I’d like to make an appointment, the very first question his receptionist posed to me was: what insurance do you have?  Not my name or even, heaven forbid, what the problem was.  No, what insurance did I have?

And if I didn’t have insurance?  I shudder to think.

I’ve also experienced several wrenchings of the so-called doctor-patient relationship because the company changed health plans and my doctor was out of network, making it prohibitively expensive to continue that relationship.  

I’ve also encountered instances where a long-standing practice of one spouse being covered by the other’s health plan was jettisoned due to the second spouse’s having the option of being covered by their own employer.  The result?  Two spouses covered by two different health plans with two different networks of doctors and hospitals.

And these are problems for people who have health insurance! 

And what about those folks who are working but whose employers don’t offer health insurance?

It’s just not right or fair that the system is so temperamental, whimsical and arbitrary.  Health care is too important for it not to work for everyone.

By all means let’s keep health insurance in place as the conduit for coverage, but let’s make sure that everyone has the ability to get coverage if that coverage is the gatekeeper for getting care.

Flying to the moon is rocket science.  Ensuring access to health care for everyone should not be.

If you’re a driver, then it’s likely that the only time you pay attention to speed limit signs is when you spot a cop car parked on the side of the road or when (even more inconveniently) the cop is on the road doing the speed limit and no one dares go faster, meaning you have to go that slow until the cop gets on an exit ramp and out of the way.  Then, as if all the drivers were a bunch of lemmings, everyone picks up the speed they were going before or maybe even faster to make up for lost time.

Speed limit signs, in other words, are pretty ineffective at controlling drivers and are treated by most of them as mere suggestions.  

This insight, I believe, is what is behind the administration’s and other Democrats’ insistence that any health care reform needs to include the so-called “public option” as a way of making sure health insurers obey the speed limit, as it were.

The health insurance industry’s reaction has been unenthusiastic, needless to say. 

Here’s what a spokesman for AHIP said in response to the one Democratic package unveiled recently: “A government-run plan would dismantle employer-based coverage, add additional liabilities to the federal budget, and turn back the clock on efforts to improve the quality and safety of patient care.  A better approach is to pursue reforms that can achieve broad bipartisan support, including strengthening the health care safety net, overhauling existing market rules, promoting shared responsibility, and transforming the delivery system to reward quality and value.”

Now, who could possibly disagree with those noble goals?  But the devil, as they say, is in the details or, in this case, how to get from the present unsatisfactory point A to a point B where the health care system works for everyone.

The reality of the situation is that you’re not going to do it without the cop. 

Any idea that’s put forth that would dramatically change the status quo is jumped on by Republicans as leading to a government-run health system. 

Public option?  Socialism!

A tax on rich health benefits? Socialism!

Individuals being required to have health insurance?  Socialism!

This last really gets me because the people spouting this nonsense don’t believe health care is a right but they don’t want to make it a responsibility either.

So much for the “broad bipartisan support” so nobly wished for by the AHIP spokesman.

The reality is that something major in the current way we insure people is going to have to change in order for the system to get better. Tweaks are not going to do it.

President Obama made a telling point about the public option in his press conference on June 23.  “If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care, if they tell us they’re offering a good deal, then why is it that the government-which they say can’t run anything-suddenly is going to put them out of business?  That’s not logical.”

Shortly before Mr. Obama’s press conference, Karen Ignagni, president of AHIP, and Scott Serota, president of the Blues, wrote a letter to the Senate that said, “We do not believe that is it possible to create a government plan that could operate on a level playing field.  Regardless of how it is initially structured, a government plan would use its built-in advantages to take over the health insurance market.”

This is pretty lame and the industry really should be able to articulate its case backed by evidence instead of simply resorting to jejune arguments.

The fact is that when the cop is on the road, everyone else is on their best behavior.  And if they’re not, they should be ready to get pulled over.