The Inescapable 'Why' Question

No arguing the fact, America right now is in a bailout mood. Not everyone likes it, but everyone grudgingly admits some things simply have to be saved whether we like them or not. However, when it comes to saving our busted, bloated healthcare system, few of us ever really brave the axiomatic question. Exactly why do we spend tens of billions every year on our health...?

This inescapable why question takes on renewed urgency now that the President has given a green light for science to more freely explore bold new ways to protect, preserve and extend human life.

When it comes to this inescapable why question, answers like "I just want to feel good" are really no answers at all. Looking and feeling good is not an end in itself. If we're honest with ourselves, it's more a means to an end. Consciously or not, we want to feel good because we want to live longer. And that, my fellow healthcare participants, is the real answer to the why question.

Upon closer consideration, it seems the younger we are, the longer we want to live. The older we are, the better we want to live. Be it either quantity or quality, eventually comes that twinkling in time when the what's-it-all-for question takes a bite out of our soul. When, like in the old song classic by Peggy Lee, the inescapable why question comes down to is-that-all-there-is?

Our good doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and government planners have no answers for us. Nor should they be expected to. Their task is to sustain not explain life. Enter here the philosopher, the clergy, the artist. It is to these that we must look for help in understanding our obsession with health

Each of these mentors each in their own way reminds us that life is more than protoplasm, genes and brain circuitry. Shakespeare called us "the paragon of animals," and yet he wrote about us as being far grander or grosser than the beasts of the field. That's because he and most of the world's philosophers, clergy and artists sense we are a whole mysteriously greater than the mere sum of our physiological parts.

It is because of this vague, arguable presumption that our species can never completely ignore the inescapable why question. Look around. That includes the hard-sweating racket-ball player...the vigorous treadmill walker...the vitamin-popping breakfast taker...the dedicated OR surgeon....the meditation guru...the experimenting neuro-biologist....even the iron-pumping teenager. We're all instinctively hoping that healthcare in America gets fixed, because then our disguised dream of eternal life gets real!

Still, I for one hear the haunting echo of Peggy's song "Is That All There Is?" I know somewhere deep inside me the answer is a lusty, presumptuous No. That for many of us is the beginning of the answer to the inescapable why question.

OK, healthcare reform, I'm ready for you....!