As the battle for healthcare reform rages on, many of the myths that I once expected to quietly die have instead become stronger and more entrenched. In particular, the degree of misunderstanding surrounding the “public plan” portion of healthcare reform proposals continues to astound me, both on the Right and the Left. I addressed some of those concerns in a post last week entitled “All About the Public Plan” and I think some of the misconceptions I discussed in that article have pertinence to the discussion of alternate reform mechanisms as well. Especially in regards to Co-ops, I think misunderstandings on the part of the Left have hobbled any chance at real discussion of this viable public plan alternative. So hopefully this will help clear some things up:
For those who didn’t get to see it last night, I give you Obama’s healthcare speech, in both video form and text form (after the jump). Frankly, it was better than I expected. He effectively summarized the rational for many of the most controversial reform elements, and added in enough personal stories and emotional appeals to keep it from becoming too dense with policy details. I also thought he did a fair job of criticizing some of the tactics that have been used by his opponents, while promoting cooperation. I sincerely hope that the olive branch of tort reform Obama extended last night was in good faith, and that the republicans will actually become more cooperative as a result. It would be nice if it felt like congress was actually trying to do what they thought was best for the country and not what they thought was best for their party or their political future. Hit the read link to see the full text.
Of all issues in politics, this one is probably most dear to me. No I’m not talking about healthcare, though that may be a close second, I’m talking about maintaining and improving the quality of our political dialogue. For those who don’t know, healthcare town hall meetings have been held over the last week all across the country, and small groups of radical protesters have shown up at many of them with the express goal of “shouting down” their elected leaders.
To be clear, I have absolutely no problem with somebody being against the current healthcare bills being developed in congress. If they’ve researched the issues thoroughly and have cut through the mists of misinformation and still come out thinking its not the best idea for America then more power to them. I would welcome those people at a healthcare town hall and I would encourage them to go and speak their mind, even forcefully if they feel its appropriate. But that’s not what this is. This is just mobs of people screaming slogans and platitudes. It’s people who are clearly unfamiliar with the content of the healthcare bill chanting things like “read this bill” for half an hour while their elected leader tries in vain to explain to them that they actually have read each and every iteration of the bill. This news article, after the jump, will give you a picture of what’s going on: Continue reading
Well needless to say there’s a lot going on in the healthcare arena lately. In case you missed it, the House of Representatives released their healthcare bill last week. I’m planning on writing up my analysis of it but unfortunately I’ve got midterms early next week so you’ll all have to wait a week or so for that. But in the meantime I thought I’d provide some basic information about what the bill contains since I’ve had several people recently express frustration to me that they don’t know where to get an objective description of the contents of the bill. So I’ve provided some helpful links after the jump. Continue reading
While politicians hammer out the details of healthcare reform legislation and debate some of the more “controversial issues” (which I put in quotes because they shouldn’t be as controversial as they are) surrounding healthcare reform, the administration is busy doing things that everyone should be able to happy about. Of course good news doesn’t draw as many readers as doom and gloom so its easy to miss some of these developments if you’re just clicking through a news website or taking in a bit of CNN, so I’ve highlighted a couple of the recent positive developments after the jump. Continue reading
Well its been a while hasn’t it? Sorry about that. I’ll be posting with more regularity in the future. As many of you know I recently got back from an AMA conference in Chicago and it was a surprisingly eye-opening experience in a lot of different ways. There’s no way I can cover it all in one post so I’m just going to talk about one of the issues that was discussed at this meeting. There is a now-famous article that was recently published in the New Yorker entitled “The Cost Conundrum” which analyzes some of the drivers of high healthcare costs.
Everybody was talking about this article. The President of the AMA called the article a “watershed moment” for healthcare reform. Supposedly President Obama had everyone on his healthcare team read the article. So if you have even a passing interest in healthcare policy and reform, you should probably read it too. So for your enjoyment I’ve posted a link to it after the jump.
Well while I’m on the topic of the future of Healthcare here’s another one for you. The CEO of the CMA, Joe Dunn, came and spoke at the UCD School of Medicine several weeks ago and he gave a great speech. And now, through the miracle of technology, that speech is available to all of you! His speech was directed towards medical students but it really has relevance to anyone who wants to get something done in politics. Its long but he’s a very engaging and entertaining speaker and the speech really gets better as it goes along so if you have the time its definitely worth watching it through. You would be hard-pressed to find a better primer on how things get done in government.
Well with finals over and done with you can expect to get a lot more posts from me in the coming weeks! And we start out today with some very exciting news. President Obama held a press conference today for what he called, “a watershed event in the long and elusive quest for health care reform.” The American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association; PhRMA; AdvaMed; America’s Health Insurance Plans, the SEIU, and the Greater New York Hospital Association and the California Hospital Association announced a new cooperative effort to drastically reduce the rate of growth of healthcare costs beginning immediately. They pledged to cut the rate of growth by 1.5%. This may not seem like a lot but this means a cut from about 7% to 5.5%, bringing us much closer to the annual rate of income growth which tends to hover around 4-5% but which has at times grown to near 6%. And that’s what really matters, that’s really our baseline here. If healthcare costs can be reduced such that their growth is equal to the rate of income growth in the US then the future of healthcare suddenly gets a lot rosier. And this commitment brings us much closer to that goal.
And this is also great news for America’s future financial security. Many people don’t realize the huge impact that rising healthcare costs have on our country’s national budget. The reasons why that is are a subject for another article but even a savings of 1.5% will mean much smaller deficits and less national debt. One Obama aid put it this way: Continue reading
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"We do not need to judge nearly so much as we think we do. This is the age of snap judgments. … [We need] the courage to say, ‘I don’t know. I am waiting further evidence. I must hear both sides of the question.’ It is this suspended judgment that is the supreme form of charity. Someone has said that you cannot slice cheese so fine that it doesn’t have two sides."
-Dallin H. Oaks
"It is better to debate a question without settling it, than to settle a question without debating it...The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress."
-Joseph Joubert
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-David Freeman
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
As the battle for healthcare reform rages on, many of the myths that I once expected to quietly die have instead become stronger and more entrenched. In particular, the degree of misunderstanding surrounding the “public plan” portion of healthcare reform proposals continues to astound me, both on the Right and the Left. I addressed some of those concerns in a post last week entitled “All About the Public Plan” and I think some of the misconceptions I discussed in that article have pertinence to the discussion of alternate reform mechanisms as well. Especially in regards to Co-ops, I think misunderstandings on the part of the Left have hobbled any chance at real discussion of this viable public plan alternative. So hopefully this will help clear some things up:
