healthcare
I like Robert Reich a lot. He’s a bit more left-leaning than I am, but I have a hard time disagreeing with him on most issues.
But his most recent blog post really caught my eye:
Universal health insurance won’t happen unless Obama can light a fire under the Senate Finance Committee this week. Within the next two weeks, the Committee must report out a bill that contains a public option and a credible source of money (either limiting deductions of the wealthy to 28 percent or capping tax-free employer-provided health care, or some of both). Obama then has to get both the Senate and the House (which reports out a bill today) to approve their respective bills before August 7, when Congress heads home for recess.
Why is timing so important? Because the health-care clock is ticking, and doesn’t have many weeks left. Universal health care is so complicated — touching on so much of the economy, stepping on the toes of so many vested interests — that to allow the bills to languish past recess risks the entire goal. Speed is essential.
This strikes me as more than a little odd. If health care reform is so complicated, shouldn’t we start by accepting that speed is not essential? After all we’re talking about reforms that have impacts lasting longer than anyone alive on this planet.
Instead of trying to ram some legislation though, perhaps we can just slow down and come up with a bipartisan roadmap that everyone can agree with. We would then have years to start picking away and implementing this road-map.
The first step of this road-map could be: The US health care system needs substantial reform. Anyone that disagrees with this ought to be voted straight out of office in the next election.
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