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HEALTH REFORM: Closer to the Goal Line ... And It's an Historic Goal Line
Overall, it's been a pretty good week for health reform.
We know there is a ton of work to do, both for the politics (60 votes) and the policy (we need to merge the bills correctly and not just to get the votes but to make health reform work for the people who need it -- which is all of us.)
None of the five bills passed by the House or Senate committees on their own is perfect. No final bill will be "perfect" either, of course. But we're still hoping for really really good.
When we write about how far we've come, rather than how far we need still to go, it's not an effort to minimize any of the flaws or challenges that we still need to address. Trust us, we live and breathe flaws and challenges. But we do think it's important to keep in mind that this legislation will be the single biggest advance in U.S. social policy since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. And when you think about it in those sweeping historical terms, it's pretty exciting.
It's also worth remembering that the huge social advances of the 20th century were not passed with one wave of the legislative magic wand (and moderate, liberal and conservative Democrats feuded over every one of those achievements, too. Although there were more moderate Republicans in the mix). Social Security in the mid 1930s covered only about half of adults -- left out were many farm workers, domestic workers, many people who worked for small businesses, and many blacks. That got fixed, in time. Medicare did not include disabled people or those with end stage kidney disease until the early 1970s; we didn't add a drug benefit to Medicare until 2003. So it too, was fixed, in time. Health reform will do more to improve Medicare for future generations.
Don't misunderstand. We aren't saying we would settle for an incremental bill, or a bad bill. We want a good bill, an excellent bill, and a comprehensive bill, one that takes the strongest and most effective provisions from the various pieces of legislation approved by the committees to achieve our goals of covering everybody, containing costs, and improving quality. But we understand it won't be a perfect bill. But that, too, can be fixed in time.
Progress!
It’s so refreshing to see excitement about the progress that has been made so far in health reform instead of the ‘doom and gloom’ prophecies that have dominated the media. We finally have bills on the table that may help us enact some important changes to the system – and even more importantly, we’re finally talking about the problems in our current system in a way that we never have before. Of course, this is just a first step in the long process of health reform. A single health reform bill will not be a ‘magic pill’ for our current healthcare system. Let’s use this initial success as a stepping stone: now it’s time to work together to truly innovate and create new models of care that can drive real change.
thanks.. we don't think any
thanks.. we don't think any of the bills are "there" yet, we are aware it's a work in progress with a very very very very very long list of things that can go wrong and things that need to be fixed. But I spent more than a decade covering Congress, I have seen the process up close (and an awful lot of it is in fact about process) and i know the steps taken this far are neither minor nor easy so we're still hoping for a happy ending.
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