So what's the pragmatic thing to do?
A moderate increase in taxes and a moderate increase in entitlement spending? Sigh.
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a less depressing way to look at it is that we have been kicking the health care can down the road for decades. we could have addressed the problem a long time ago and the resulting tax increases wouldn't have looked so dramatic. but, as we learned with the iraq war, we have to pay the bill sometime. bush managed to kick all the costs of his wars to future generations. he, and most very president and congress before him chose to kick the costs of a decrepit and royally f'ed up health care system down to us and future generations. it doesn't make the pain any less bad but it helps put it in context.
ReplyDeleteOh I'm all for health care reform--it's just my reforms wouldn't involve increasing taxation or entitlement eligibility.
ReplyDeleteInstead, I'd favor reforming the existing employer-based system with one like this and means-testing Medicare.
"it's just my reforms wouldn't involve increasing taxation or entitlement eligibility."
ReplyDeletei think the chances of that being feasible are really small.
means-testing medicare is a good idea but it won't do enough to solve the problem.
i generally like some of the things that pearlstein said but the fact remains that the only enforceable, feasible way to do anything serious about health care reform is to roll out a public plan. anything else is just leaving it to the health insurance/sickcare system we have now to do it on the honor system (and we see how well that worked out over the last few decades).
a completely free market in health had its chance for a long time. in many ways, it failed. there is far too much incentive to kill people to boost profit margins.