I’m a huge Obama supporter and have also worked in not-for-profit health care for most of my life. I’ve been an active advocate of improvement in health care quality, covering the insured and under-insured as well as overall reform.
I was moved by Obama’s speech, mostly because it was impassioned and it’s clear that steps will be made to move forward. I still am pretty skeptical though, of keeping such a robust system of insurances in place that inflates prices and alienates patients from the true cost of care. Having studied this for years, I’m fairly certain there’s not 900 billion dollars-worth of low-hanging fruit in the form of eliminating duplication and waste from the current system to pay for it. I see a ‘coverage’ option on the horizon, but not a lot of systemic reform. There needs to be accountability to drive down costs and hold organizations accountable for quality in order for true reform to happen, and I don’t hear a lot about that. It concerns me.
Maybe these details will emerge as the reform particulars crystallize, but this feels like a middle-of-the road band aid to me. Admittedly, that’s better than nothing, or at the minimum, a good start.
For anyone who’s interested, this article in the Atlantic is long, but is great about explaining some of the problems with insurance.