I want to have a concersation about health care. In another context , I wrote the following today:
"If things don't change, medical care for the baby boomers will either break this country or lead to a political Armageddon, or perhaps both. We are living through a slow motion train wreck. And I have abandoned all hope that Washington is capable of dealing with it in any meaningful or responsible way."
As a first step, I'd just like to know if anyone agrees with me and if not why not.
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I have abandoned hope that Washington is capable of dealing with any major issue in a meaningful or responsible way.
I think that the discussion on healthcare is so naturally polarizing -- if you got it you're happy, if you don't you're not -- that it defies solution through conventional political means. A decision to push broad healthcare coverage will be akin to the passing of the civil rights bill. LBJ knew it was political suicide but it was the right thing to do. "We have lost the South for a generation",he was quoted as saying at the time.
I don't know of anyone willing to offer that kind of leadership today.
So to your real question:
Do the baby boomers, by their shear numbers, make difficult health care policy choices unworkable?
Answer: No.
I assume that as we age, we boomers transition to a government run, single payer system. It's called Medicare. Medicare is probably the most efficient health care delivery system in the country today. Much more efficient interms of administrative costs than private insurance.
The problem is keeping Medicare solvent. This is where solutions start to get dicey. We have to raise premiums, index them to income, and continue to work on cost control. Tort reform wouldn't hurt either. This is where politics come in, as groups such as AARP fight vigorously for Medicare to stay as a pure entitlement program.
This doesn't solve the "other" healthcare issue -- coverage for the working poor. But I think that the baby boomer angle is workable.
By the way, AARP is the second largest organization in America today. The largest: The Roman Catholic Church.
With all due respect, I think you're making my point rather than responding to it. You say: "The problem is keeping Medicare solvent. This is where solutions start to get dicey. We have to raise premiums, index them to income, and continue to work on cost control. Tort reform wouldn't hurt either." Then you point out that AARP is the second largest organization in America and willing to fight tooth and nail to keep Medicare a pure entitlement program. Do you think our children will not eventually fight back? Tort reform? Sure. All of the things Danny lists? Absolutely. Means testing? Of course. All great ideas. Where are the votes for any of them? That is the slow motion train wreck I see. And near as I can tell, I am pretty lonely in seeing it as a problem.
One other thing. In your first comment, you said something about health care being naturally polarizing because if you've got it your happy and if you don't you're not. Do you know anyone, with possible exception of federal employees, who is "happy" with their health care? This is actually one of the great mysteries of the debate: can anything so awful be defended so vigorously -- by its victims no less.
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