Better Approaches to Health Care Reform

The public is starting to become aware that current bills for health care reform do not meet any of the objectives which they were supposed to meet. There's opposition from the left -- from the independent feminist Camille Paglia, from the Dean of the Harvard Medical School and even from Howard Dean. The White House seems to be proposing a form of shadow government to contain some of the damage caused by careless legislation, in order to spare legislators and the administration from making tough choices which could be unpopular with voters.

Some conservatives and libertarians think they have some better ideas. From Reason TV, LASIK-inspired health care reform. Charles Krauthammer suggests that Congress kill the bills and start over. Read the whole thing.

I agree with Paglia, Dean and Krauthammer about the disastrous nature of the current bills. Howard Dean believes that making things worse by passing the current legislation under consideration may be worth it if Congress also passes a public option which will lead to single-payer health care. I don't agree with that.

Single-payer health care systems often offer advantages for a while - sometimes for many years. But eventually these systems develop huge problems which are extremely hard to fix. Contrast the Reason video linked above with the following example concerning what happens eventually with single-payer health care:

As is typical in government medicine, there has been no accountability even though Basildon has been criticized publicly since 2001, when the Royal College of Nursing described conditions there as "third world."

And don't even get me started on health care systems for institutionalized people in our own state. . . . .