A friend posted an interesting link on facebook--Five Common Myths About Healthcare Around the World.
Definitely worth looking at if you're interested in having an informed opinion on the healthcare debate.
Hopefully this time around we can have some sort of positive change. I care less about whether it comes from the Democrats (Obama) or the Republicans (Bennett) than I do about whether we pull some type of reform off, or we leave things as they are. The insurance companies would like to leave things as they are, but even they are starting to realize that the worse things get, the more we'll want to get rid of them; even the insurance companies are starting to realize that some type of minimal reform is necessary in order for them to stay in business in the long-run.
There are multiple ways to reform the system that are superior to the way things are now. Let's hope we choose one of them for better healthcare at a reduced price.
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Good article. Although I tend to lean in the opposite direction on health care, I thought it was well-written. It's nice to see an article arguing for government involvement in health care without making everything out to be black and white.
One important point he makes is that we are not running a free-market system in the U.S. This really means two things: First, you can't really point to our health care system as proof that a free-market system won't work. Second, you can't argue against health care reform under the guise of protecting our "free-market system". I'm afraid a lot of uninformed Republicans think that we've got an awesome free-market system now, and that Obama wants to turn it into a useless, socialized system. The truth is really that we're somewhat socialized now, and the Democrats want to make it somewhat more socialized.
I like the quote at the beginning, "Instead of dismissing [other countries'] models as “socialist,” we could adapt their solutions to fix our problems." Obviously we've got to come up with our own solution, and what works for Germany or Norway or Japan may not work for us.
Even-handed political writing like this is hard to come by. Good find.
I'm not sure that Democrats want to make it more socialized. I think most of them would vote for any positive change (including one that is more market-driven).
The two problems reformers face is, first, insurance companies are powerful, don't want change, and are willing to pay off politicians to keep the status quo, and second, many people are afraid of any type of change (and are often the same people who ignorantly believe that the US is the best at everything and all other countries wish they could be us).
Let me rephrase that--I think most Democrats would be happy to accept the system of any other first-world country, including those that are market-based (but of course those countries don't have an entirely market-based system, as they have protections built in them for those with pre-existing conditions, the poor, etc.)
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