Our Petro-Lifestyles & Our Healthcare System: More Similar than you'd think!

Today in Washington, D.C., President Obama and members of his cabinet are getting together with people on both sides of the current healthcare system.  As was pointed out by Rick Klein in his column today on ABCNews.com (Link below), parties on both sides recognize that the situation we're in right now (i.e. costs spiraling out of control, corporate lobbies running the show, etc)  and feel something needs to be done.  The trouble, of course, is trying to come to a consensus on what, exactly, should be done.  

Does all of this sound familiar?  If you have paid any attention at all to the back and forth among policy makers and advocacy groups in the argument over energy, it should sound very familiar.  Right now, even oil companies (though at their own snail-like pace) are admitting that new sources of energy need to be examined, even if they are still in the business of reassuring us that America can keep on using oil for 150 years without running out.  People recognize that the United States uses petroleum at a rate that is absolutely unsustainable, given the current global conditions.  The problem remains how to deal with the use, what alternatives are viable and practical, and how best to get this country (with its notoriously short attention span and reluctance to change) headed in the right direction.

In our current healthcare system, if you don't have insurance, you're either out of luck or you're paying through the nose to get the care you need.  In our current petroleum system, if you don't have enough money, you can't buy a hybrid or solar panels for your home.  Moreover, a certain element of society thinks that this is not a problem and would really like to see things continue in this vain.  They see healthcare and our petro-lifestyle as market driven.  As much as they say that they empathize with those who suffer (whether it be in the hospital or when they open up their energy bill), they continue to repeat the Reaganomics mantra of trickle-down, tax cuts, the market will solve everything, etc.

The time has come, however, as with the healthcare summit, to start to focus forward, erasing the mistakes and failed policies of the last 8 years.  President Obama sees the need to bring these parties to the table with healthcare because the industry, as loathsome as it is sometimes, still holds  a very tight grip on the way things get done in Washington.  The oil companies (or as some of them are now calling themselves, the 'Energy' companies) on the other hand, have been weakened by the combination of last summer's oil spike, the ridiculously massive profits they reaped during that time, and the ad campaigns they are running that all but the most gullible American sees as a ploy to not let the Big Bad Government eat them up.  

The opportunity to hold an energy summit, like this healthcare summit, is here, now.  We must act quickly and decisively if we are to act on the initiative of the First 100 days of the new administration.  As the old blacksmith's saying goes, "Strike while the iron is hot."  Doing so will set the energy policy that we need to begin our long, hard journey away from fossil fuels; and the sooner we get started, the better.