Philosophy & Public Policy Quarterly 28 (1/2): pp. 19-23.Many health care groups are giddy about the prospect
of real national health care reform, following the
Democratic takeover of both Congressional chambers
in January 2007. Taking this cue, the several presidential
campaigns give priority to health care reform and
are, therefore, slowly divulging their plans. Recalling
President and Mrs. Clinton’s efforts of fifteen years
ago, presidential hopefuls of today perceive this as an
opportunity to advance a Democratic “core value”:
universal health care.
President Bush and some Republican Congressional
members understandably have their own ideas
regarding how to slow the increase in costs of health
care, to insure more people, and (generally) to assist
the system to “heal thyself.”
Getting health care reform onto a “national agenda”
is a vital first step to improving the health care of all
Americans, but keeping it there and making significant
change is of far greater import. Thus, if the latest
national health care reform movement follows the perfunctory
political stream, the result will be yet another
set of incremental policy changes that add more complexity,
but these changes will provide little improvement
to a system very much in distress. We must get
serious about true health care reform
