HEALTH REFORM: 'Tis the Season

It's the most wonderful time of the year—at least for proponents of health reform. While holiday shopping has just begun, it seems the "it" item on Washington wishlists these days is health reform.

For example, today's Los Angeles Times suggests, "a consensus appears to be emerging in Washington about how to achieve the elusive goal of providing medical insurance to all Americans." And while a political and policymaking consensus is forming (around the need for public-private partnership that preserves aspects of the existing system, the Times writes), its opposition seems to be stalling, argues a story in The Politico last week.

Like the first snowfall of winter, it seems the events of the past few months have cast health reform in a new light.

The new administration has signaled health reform will be at the top of its agenda, while leaders in Congress have already started laying the groundwork for major legislation, and strange bedfellows like the SEIU and NFIB are expressing agreement on broad principles.

Even that potential Ebenezer Scrooge, the economy, may have been a blessing in disguise, writes Drew Armstrong, in the cover story of last week's CQ Weekly (subscription). Health care, the argument goes, has been a "creeping catastrophe"—bad enough for everyone to moan about but never bad enough to create the political momentum needed for comprehensive changes needed to truly fix the system. The economic crisis may help create that space, unifying lawmakers around the (very sound) belief that fixing the economy means fixing health care.

Of course all this optimism comes at an extremely early stage in the process. Everyone has nice things to say at the start of the holidays or a major reform effort. It's whether you're still talking at the end of the process that matters. Heritage Foundation's Stuart Butler is right to tell the LA Times that the details are still very unclear. But hearing NFIB's president Todd Stottlemeyer tell the paper "Doing this [health reform] piecemeal is not going to work," is just the kind of season's greetings that warms our hearts.