A Huff and Puff on Health Care

Why, oh why, is health care such an impossible, vexing public policy problem? Actually the answer is basically quite simple.

On the one hand, roughly 75 percent of the American people in poll after poll say they are reasonably satisfied with their health care and insurance.

On the other hand, and perversely, roughly 70 percent of the same American people in poll after poll say they support health care reform to 1) contain costs 2) cover everyone and 3) fix problems like portability and job loss, etc.

Taken together, those two statements sound like a status quo confronted by a threatening, but well intentioned, challenge of change that could easily end up spelling 'stalemate'.

Well, surprise, surprise--that seems to be what we have. But, hold on a moment, maybe we have simply been going through a complex political sorting-out process. And, once again, our new, young President, who has taken lumps throughout this affair, may turn out to have been exactly right to give the body politic time and space to work it out.

There are, of course, several significant nodes of opposition to the President's plan. One is people who want him to fail simply for the sake of injuring his whole presidency. Another is people who are simply gradualists and want to limit change to modest increments allegedly to avoid making newer, different, bigger problems, but really to protect the status quo. And a last group that doubts that cost containment can be achieved short of fundamental structural changes in the incentives underlying the present health care system, which are not addressed anywhere in the present plan.

At this moment the President's unarguable, and overwhelmingly valid, point must take over the rational debate because the status quo is simply untenable. In just a matter of years, the country truly risks bankruptcy if we fail to control health costs.

And that is where we are now.

And that is why it is time for the silent, but complacent, majority to assert its voice in crafting compromises in several of the sub-debates. For example, the "public option" debate is held out as risking socialism, which on its face really makes no sense at all because we already are there with Medicare. And, a major reason why there has been such broad acceptance of today's status quo is because on balance Medicare really works quite well, partly because its costs are not constrained. An additional, new public option governed by marketplace rules of efficiency with no permitted deficits should not be objectionable, particularly if Medicare's costs are also properly constrained.

On cost containment: there really are few arguments left about digitizing medicine; there begins to be common ground in the arena of tort reform and defensive medicine; and there really are few arguments left about conferring benefits on illegal immigrants except in serious emergencies. And virtually all the points about prior conditions, portability, job moves or loss, etc. have already effectively been resolved.

While we may not get a perfect bill that makes everyone happy, we can hope and expect to get a significant move forward so that in future years, we can hopefully address today's unaddressed problems of misdirected incentives throughout the whole culture of our health care systems. And if you think today's debate has been tough, wait for that one!

Comments

[RunnelRiley]

Yesterday I posted a comment on the moral obligation of healthcare, and two bloggers attempted to correct me on Biblical principle, a ZenDiagram and nevertofarleft, well I became to busy to respond, but they seem to believe that Christianity has no place in politics, I have been a Biblical scholar and historian my whole life and have the credentials to back me up, so to address their comments, “render unto Caesar’s that which is Caesar’s” is an admonishment from Christ to do just that, pay your taxes, perform at your jobs, and serve when called upon, it is NOT a decree for separation in church and state, although I believe strongly in the separation in church and state, the state is ran by people who go to church! And we carry our beliefs with us into those positions; a wise person is one who does not let his/her beliefs dictate their decisions but temper their decisions with the moral values learned from their beliefs. Jesus regularly involved himself with the politics of his day, he addressed the Sanhedrin composed of Sadducees and Pharisees (the Jewish ruling council) who operated under the watchful eye of the Roman Governor on multiple occasions. Now I am sorry I did not mean to give a Biblical lecture in this forum but I did want to correct the record, this is a Moral debate. We must do our duty as Christians and “heal the sick” by insuring Congress passes a strong healthcare reform bill.

[MalteseTiger]

If course you intended to give a Biblical lecture.. don't kid yourself or insult our intelligence
If you didn't want to lecture.. you would have actually responded to the 2 people you referred to.. IN that thread..

The only reason you would have in posting this here is to hear yourself preach

[Alex Tahoma]

So basically the media doesn't cover the beneficial stuff, waiting for Obama to slip up? Basic media coverage for you.

[PlaceboStudman]

You forgot one aspect of opposition. Those of us who KNOW the difference between Health Care and Health Cost, and resent anyone saying they want to reform Health Care, when they really only want to reform Health Cost.

The single biggest Health Care reform went through yesterday, with barely a peep from most media. The president signing $5B into grants to the NIH for cancer and AIDS/HIV research.

That grant signing will at least now give people a REASON to gripe over Health Cost because there may be something worth paying for in 10-20 years when the research from those grants pan out.