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CHARTS! GRAPHS! HEALTH CARE! 1994!
Over at CAP, Ben Furnas pulled together a bunch of charts and graphs tracking trends in health care since 1994. The quick takeaway is that not only have things gotten worse, but that many things are getting worse at an accelerating rate. This is actually an important point. When you don't fix health care reform, you're not left with the status quo. You're left with the continuing deterioration of the status quo. Prices continue to rise. More join the ranks of the uninsured. More go bankrupt. More die. The status quo gets worse. And on some level, people know that.
Some people say that when it comes to health reform, failure isn't an option. That's not true. But it's not a good option. I'd add one graph to Furnas's chart pack. In November of 2005, a Democracy Corps poll asked whether we'd be better or worse off if Clinton's health care plan had passed. The results were striking. In general, voters justify their decisions. After an election, more people say they voted for the winner than actually did. After a policy failure, more say they opposed the policy than polls showed at the time. Not so in this question. For all the faults of Clinton's plan, and all that that process is remembered as a historic failure, a solid majority said the country would have been better off if it had passed:
They're right, incidentally. People sometimes say that when it comes to health reform, failure is not an option. That's wrong. Failure is always an option. It's just not a good one.
COMMENTS (4)
repeat yourself much?
Posted by: yo-z | January 9, 2009 6:22 PM
I notice that "about the same" wasn't an option.
Posted by: ShortWoman | January 9, 2009 7:49 PM
Failiure is the monther of sucess.
Posted by: sunvalleyus | January 10, 2009 2:17 AM
When will you take a real stand ?
Medicare for All is the way to go. It re-capitalizes government, business the under and uninsured while saving 30% of the costs. Private insurance takes 15% in profit and 15% in overhead, Medicare takes 3% ~ TOTAL !
Medicare for All would allow the restructuring of the practice of medicine altogether. We can not afford 17% of our GDP to go to healthcare. Other G7 nations spend 10% have better outcomes and cover all their populations not 85%.
If health care is not restructured we will be spending 20% of GDP by 2020 if not sooner!
So, Mr Klein, when will you start advocating for Medicare for All instead of beating the dead horse of the current failures of our health care system.
Posted by: mmckinl | January 10, 2009 2:54 PM