David Frum reports that “Nine out of 10 Americans believe the U.S. health care system needs radical reform. Two-thirds of Americans believe the government must guarantee health care for all. Most polls show health care to be one of Americans' two top domestic policy concerns, the other being the overall state of the economy.”One sign that health is changing politics comes from an LA Times article documenting how big business is pushing universal health care:
36 major companies [are] launch[ing] a political campaign . . . calling for medical insurance to be expanded to everyone along lines Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing for California. . .[These] large firms already provide medical coverage to their employees and have become increasingly frustrated as premiums have increased over the years. That has made them more willing to look to the government for solutions.
[The companies have] embraced two of Schwarzenegger's central concepts: requiring everyone to be insured and providing financial assistance to the poor to help them purchase coverage. That framework also forms the basis of a proposal in Congress, sponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), that has some bipartisan support [see blog entry here]. . .
"For Republican legislators, the business community has been an important constituency," said Adam Mendelsohn, Schwarzenegger's spokesman. "And when you have businesses standing up and saying, 'The healthcare system is problematic for us; fix it,' that presents a dynamic that has been missing in previous healthcare debates."
Douglas Schoen, who writes on health care issues, offers five changes short of universal care that would best answer public sentiment for reform:
1. [Extend] government health care benefits to all children without this protection as soon as possible.
2. [R]educe the price of prescription drugs--whether it be done legislatively or by nongovernmental action involving the drug companies, business, and labor.
3. [Reimburse] payments for mental health services at similar levels to those for physical health care services.
4. [E]mbrace prevention to avoid disease and support policies to accomplish this goal.
5. [Address] health care for an increasingly aging population.
2 comments:
Hi Dad,
With all due respect to Doug Schoen, who I'm sure has thought about all of this deeply:
If 2/3 of Americans, including the LAT's alliance of big businesses, want universal coverage, why can't we just get that? Why do we have to settle for "five changes short of universal care", at all?
Is Mr. Schoen - are you - somehow ideologically opposed to universal health care?
Aloha,
Derek
I'm agnostic on the subject. Schoen says, in the referenced article:
"many politicians--particularly those on the left--have been outspoken in support of fundamental change in our current system to encompass these goals.
"How they seek to achieve that change is subject to significant debate and detailed policy discussion, the details of which are hard for most Americans to grasp. But it is taken almost as a given by most that unless the system is fundamentally altered, the will of the American people will not necessarily be done."
In the end, Schoen feels Americans will accept incremental change that incorporates the five fixes he offers (see post).
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