It may be 1,000 pages long, but it can be summed up in 1,000 words. Read this insightful, even-handed summary of the health reform debate by the Washington Post's Alec MacGillis to help make sense of what this is all about. It succintly lays out the proposals, and the pros and cons. As he says, "health-care reform is not that hard to understand, and those who tell you otherwise most likely have an ulterior motive...Love the proposals or hate them, people can try to make sense of them. There is no excuse!

comments (1)

I can't understand how we can afford yet another "public option". We already have 4 public options: Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP and the VA system. Each targets a different group but they cover a whole lot of people so we can learn from them what are the problems we will encounter with another public option plan. David Walker when he was the head of the GAO predicted that as the Baby Boomers became eligible for Medicare, that all by itself bankrupts the Federal Treasury by about 2017. Many doctors don’t accept new Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP patients because the reimbursement rates are too low. We have critical shortage of Primary Care docs. In August I called my PCP for my annual checkup. First opening was in November. Covering pre-existing conditions is not insurance in the usual sense of the word. Could my family buy a new life insurance policy on my life if I were already dead? As Pogo once said: “We have met the enemy and he is us!” Our only hope is for all of us to start taking much better care of ourselves. If the pandemic of diabesity continues unabated changing/adding “insurance” will be neither effective nor even possible. I have been a doctor for 50 years. At 75 I do walk the talk. Visit nomoremedicines.com for a pep rally for prevention not pills, the best cost cutting proposal I know.

Post a Comment (* indicates a required field)

*Name:

*Email Address:

URL:

*Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)

*Security Code:

<<< You must enter this security code!

Remember Me? Yes No