In an article by Brian Beutler concerning so-called Blue Dog Democrats who are worried about the potential of the so-called "public option" for government offered health insurance, Beutler hits the nail on the head when it comes to what truly is the biggest hurdle to health care reform:
my immediate read on all this is that the Senate--its rules and its political makeup--remains the biggest hurdle to health care reform.
The Cato Institute recently highlighted an interesting May 17, 2009 Washington Post article that really puts certain stereotypes and conventional understanding of Canada into proper perspective.
Reports last week that the recession is draining Social Security and Medicare funds were just one more reminder that the United States needs to fix its finances. For inspiration, why not look to Canada? Long derided by American conservatives as "socialist" and praised by the left for its generous government spending, Canada is casting off those stereotypes. Over the past few years, while U.S. politicians presided over huge increases in spending and debt, the Canadian government tightened its belt, slashed tax rates and balanced budgets.
Spending: Spending by all levels of the Canadian government peaked at 53 percent of the country's GDP in the early 1990s, then plunged to 40 percent in 2008. U.S. government spending has risen, reaching 39 percent of GDP in 2008. And with the stimulus package, that number is likely to jump even higher.
Deficits: Canada has balanced its budget every year since 1998 — not by raising taxes, but by cutting spending. The United States balanced its budget for four years in the late 1990s, but now deficits are so large that it's difficult to imagine that ever happening again.
Federalism: While the U.S. government grew more centralized in recent decades, Canada's federal government ceded power. President Bush's education policies increased federal control over American schools; in Canada, K-12 education is left to the provinces.
CNN reported that the AMA's new President, Dr. J. James Rohack, is open to the idea of a government sponsored health insurance plan for Americans who don't have health insurance:
Dr. J. James Rohack told CNN that the AMA supports an “American model” that includes both “a private system and a public system, working together.”
In May, the AMA told a Senate committee it did not support a government-sponsored public health insurance option.
“The AMA does not believe that creating a public health insurance option … is the best way to expand health insurance coverage and lower costs across the health care system,” the organization wrote, explaining that a public insurance plan could lead to “an explosion of costs that would need to be absorbed by taxpayers.”
Rohack, who recently became AMA president, suggested Wednesday that the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program available to Congress members and other federal employees could be expanded as a public option. That would avoid having to create a new program from scratch, he said.
“If it’s good enough for Congress, why shouldn’t it be good enough for individuals who don’t have health insurance provided by their employers?” Rohack said.
The objective of current health reform efforts should not be to abolish the employment-based system to which so many Americans feel attached, brittle and expensive as that system may be. Instead, the aim should be to develop a robust, parallel system of fully portable insurance that individuals or families can purchase on their own, in a properly regulated and organized market, with public subsidies where deemed necessary.
In today's op-ed for the New York Times, Paul Krugman writes:
The big question here is whether health care is about to go the way of the stimulus bill.
At the beginning of this year, you may remember, Mr. Obama made an eloquent case for a strong economic stimulus — then delivered a proposal falling well short of what independent analysts (and, I suspect, his own economists) considered necessary. The goal, presumably, was to attract bipartisan support. But in the event, Mr. Obama was able to pick up only three Senate Republicans by making a plan that was already too weak even weaker.
The point is that if you’re making big policy changes, the final form of the policy has to be good enough to do the job. You might think that half a loaf is always better than none — but it isn’t if the failure of half-measures ends up discrediting your whole policy approach.
Which brings us back to health care. It would be a crushing blow to progressive hopes if Mr. Obama doesn’t succeed in getting some form of universal care through Congress. But even so, reform isn’t worth having if you can only get it on terms so compromised that it’s doomed to fail.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/76545/trembling-before-g-d
powerful film
