I wrote a comment on this same issue last night, but I wanted to make it into a post as well, given the importance.
Marcia Angel, M.D., former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, is highly critical of the proposed "health care reform." Although she admits that it accomplishes a few things, it is worse than doing nothing.
It throws more money into a dysfunctional and unsustainable system, with only a few improvements at the edges, and it augments the central role of the investor-owned insurance industry. The danger is that as costs continue to rise and coverage becomes less comprehensive, people will conclude that we've tried health reform and it didn't work. But the real problem will be that we didn't really try it.
Read the full post at Huffpo for Angel's clear and understandable ideas for meaningful (and not corrupt) health care reform. I agree with Angel that the current bill is an industry-coddling joke and that it is worse than doing nothing, for the reasons she offers. The House bill has a few pieces of low hanging fruit (e.g., portability), but at great unnecessary expense and waste. We need to tear up this celebrated new bill (celebrated by the Democrats, anyway) and start over. For more on Angell's ideas for reform, also see
her recent appearance on Bill Moyer's show.