It's the cost, stupid
Via Health Beat, here's a compendium of articles in The American Prospect discussing health-care reform. (Intro here; follow "related articles" links to the right for the others.)
One key takeaway: The problem of the uninsured, big as it is, isn't the biggest problem with our health-care system. The biggest problem is cost, and until costs are contained, the problem of the uninsured may well not be addressed. Health Beat blogger Maggie Mahar quotes Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine: "Costs are the central problem; universal health care would be easy if money were no object."
Almost as big as the issue of cost is the issue of what's politically possible: Out of all of the many ways in which health-care costs could be cut, what way, or combination of ways, can make it through the House and the Senate, particularly the latter, where not just 51 but 60 votes are needed (to prevent a filibuster)?
2009-10 may not be 1994 all over again, but the obstacles to any meaningful effort to control costs (and make other changes, such as expanding coverage) are many. Backers of significant change, of whatever type, shouldn't be confident that that change, or any change, will happen.
