This week the Senate Finance Committee continues its work on its healthcare bill. As the intensity of the discussion heats up I would like to offer some recent articles that I thought were insightful and/or informative.
To start I thought both the Washington Post article by Ezra Klein and the Wall Street Journal article “Doubling Down on a Flawed Insurance Model” by John Cogan, Glenn Hubbard and Daniel Kessler were very good at getting at some of the nuts and bolts of the healthcare industry and what drives costs, prices, offerings and behavior. To me the articles are successful at educating, not just advocating.
Then there is the recent article by former Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee (R) in US News & World Report in which he looks at the costs/benefits of a mandate for healthcare insurance and provides a very concrete yet manageable first step for reform. To me, this article is important not so much for a policy he is advocating but for the rational measured approach, the examination of historical experiences, and the transparent review of costs/benefits that he brings to the discussion. It is this type of thinking that I believe is lacking in our politically charged debate.
Finally I would like to offer an editorial by David Brooks in the New York Times. It has nothing to do yet everything with healthcare. He advocates a move away from consumption and towards economic self-restraint. What Brooks identifies is actually one of the root causes I believe of our healthcare system failings. We have an industry of significant consumption but the consumer isn’t tied to the immediate paying of the bill. It is as if someone said I could eat all the chocolate I wanted for a week and not gain weight. (I’d bring chocolate to bed.)
In my Healthcare Letter, I put forth that healthcare reform is much more than “payment” and “coverage” reform. It should be about the transformation of 17% of our economy in a methodical, deliberate way that begins to unwind the interwoven complexities of a system that is expensive and cumbersome but still offers brilliant innovation, life-saving treatments and comfort to many.
I hope these articles help illuminate some of the critical issues we are facing in this transformation. I know they did for me. It seems as if these authors had an opportunity for lucid thought in contrast to the constrained environment in the windowless Senate Finance Committee room.
(4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)
Loading ...
