(Click on image to enlarge graph)
Reed Abelson has an excellent essay in today’s New York Times –making the case that the alternative to health care reform is NOT what we’ve got right now, since what we have right now is getting too ruinously expensive with each passing month. Abelson reproduces a Commonwealth Fund chart (above) showing estimates of how much less of our GDP we would have been spending on health care if only we had succeeded at reforming health care in the Clinton, Carter, or Nixon administrations.
This is the right way to frame the health care reform debate to break the “Nash Equilibrium” that leads to gridlock. Obama has tried to do this too, pointing out that if we wanted an health care systemn where every 10 years the costs doubled and 15% of our population was uninsured and much more felt at risk, we should oppose health care reform. This framing hasn’t stuck, though, and the public (at least in most polling) doesn’t have the sense of urgency that many health care economists and public policy wonks see.
The Washington Post notes that interest groups are gearing up for the fight on health care reform – and pretty much everyone besides for the AARP is hiring lobbyists, shooting commercials, and protecting their turf. This suggests that stakeholders deeply believe health care reform can be defeated –so they’re not likely to be willing to accept substantial changes (yet).
Michael Kinsley notes that both sides of the health care reform debate are missing an important point (also in today's TImes)
Neither side has really grappled with the cost issue. When Aunt Minnie back in the district has a hip replacement (her second) and gets a bill for $90,000, the challenge is not to find someone other than Aunt Minnie to pay. The challenge is to deliver hip replacements for less than $90,000, or tell Aunt Minnie she can’t have one.
We really need to transform the delivery system – changes in health plan benefits, health plan administration, and payment methodologies alone will not get us to the health care system our patients deserve.
