17 August 2009

Reform Gone Missing

How's that healthcare thing going over in the US? A few short days ago, Howard Dean (accurately, imo), said of the public option:
There's only one piece of real reform in this bill for healthcare -- there's a couple of pieces of insurance reform which are worth doing -- but the only piece of healthcare reform that's worth doing, left, is the public option. The public option. And people say, "well, can't there be a compromise?" We have already compromised. The public option is the compromise between single payer and the private sector... We can't go any further. There's nothing else to do here. [watch from 06:15 of this video]

Now there are rumblings that the public option is being compromised away. No healthcare reform, then. Not surprising, really, given it was very poorly explained and sold by the administration, was too long, legalistic, and ambiguous, and, of course, the press coverage was often useless. Even the Guardian, which should know better, gets it wrong today, incorrectly labelling the public option as "NHS-style". Oh well.
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6 comments:

  1. zim18 August 2009 at 05:15

    i wouldn't call myself "satisfied," but if they do pass the provisions whereby one cannot be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions, nor later dropped for the same, that will be a big improvement over the current state of affairs.

    i do have to wonder, though, without the public option, how affordable it would be for those who today would be denied coverage.

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  2. JustJoeP18 August 2009 at 14:18

    a portability clause and a pre-existing conditions clause will be a step in the right direction, but ti still leaves most of the 50M people who don't have it, still screwed.

    It's like they settled on placating big pharma, big insurance, big lobbyists, and 85% of the electorate who don't get sick, leaving the individuals who have been foreclosed upon, are transient renters, or are too sick to voice their opinions - the ones who need reform the most - out in the cold, still.

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  3. JJ18 August 2009 at 14:52

    You cannot believe how many people have asked me here what I think of healthcare in the UK! I usually tell them you can't compare the NHS to any of the insurance options that are being debated. ARGGGGHHHH.

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  4. JJ18 August 2009 at 14:55

    In Switzerland, everyone is required to have health insurance I seem to remember. How do they do that? I mean, where do the little farmers get their insurance? (Little as in small farms, not small farmers)

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  5. pyker18 August 2009 at 20:14

    Krugman mentioned the Swiss: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/opinion/17krugman.html?_r=1&em, but I don't remember affordability details.

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  6. JustJoeP18 August 2009 at 23:06

    Perhaps this has some clues...

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