This week President Obama will address a joint session of Congress and the American people on the subject of health care reform. His speech appears to be a ninth-inning effort to regain control of the health care reform discussion, which has spiraled off in a hundred different directions over the summer. In fact, the president never really took the lead in the discussion in the first place; he merely set Congress on the task while providing a few glittering general principles as a framework for legislation, such as universal coverage and a “public option”. He then stepped back and let Congress go to work.
Well, Congress did in typical fashion. And what a mess we have now – the country is polarized over the issue, any attempts at true bipartisanship were superfluous, and even the Democratic majority in Congress is split.
Americans are justified in their vocal objections to “Obamacare” because it defies all logic – we simply can’t expand coverage to millions of people without incurring huge increases in spending and we can’t cut $500 billion from Medicare without affecting care. Plus, promises that you can keep your current health care plan if you like it ring false because those decisions are made by employers that provide the coverage, not by individuals.
The president has missed an opportunity to enact real reform and engage in bipartisanship by not seeking a truly American-style health care system that is driven by free market principles. We hope the president realizes that Americans’ sense of fair play is insulted by the prospect of a “public option” and scraps that idea.
Let private insurers compete, while requiring their return to “community rating” rather than “experience rating”. Today insurers compete by avoiding bad risks. Requiring them to take on all comers regardless of medical condition solves the most basic problem that every day people face in today’s system. The health insurance industry agreed to this principle early in the current discussion as long as they didn’t have to compete against the government as well.
The administration’s insistence on the public option just inflames the debate. We hope the president has listened to America this August and comes before the country with a new vision of reform that will include us all – conservative and liberal alike. But he’s going to have to give one heck of a speech.