Healthcare

Healthcare is a huge issue this election. People ask me what the different candidates say about it. I think it is hard to distinguish between candidates within each party. For instance, the plans of the democrats in the top-tier are essentially the same, the only real difference is how they would pay for it.

The entire country seems to agree on the fact that every one needs access to good healthcare. What they don't agree on is how it should be paid for. The democrats think some kind of a public system should supplement currently available private insurers. (Note that noone other than Kucinich talks about a single payer system - a single payer system would be a system where everyone buys health insurance from one source, everyone will essentially have access to the same kind of healthcare). Edwards will pay for his plan by repealing the tax cuts on those making over $200,000, Clinton will pay for her plan some other way, and I think Obama might not yet have talked about how it will be paid for.

The Republicans on the other hand are very wary of governmental involvement and believe free market is the only thing that works, and are wary of even the addition of a governmental plan to private plans. They say even the addition of a governmental plan is a "step towards socialized medicine", so we cannot even begin to talk about the single-payer system (which of course exists in differnet parts of the world). Free market will bring down insurance costs so that everybody can buy health insurance, they say. As some columnists point out, this logic is not applied to education, so why to healthcare? Public education is considered the duty of the government. But not public healthcare?

In the middle of all this is the issue of whether it should be mandatory for everyone to get health insurance, through private insurers or otherwise (like the state of Massachusetts mandated last year). Most of the country seems to feel that people without insurance burden emergency rooms and contribute to the increase of healthcare costs. That seems to point to mandating that everyone should have insurance. But what about groups like the Christian Scientists? They do not believe in intefering with God's will, and do not believe in going to doctors. Given freedom of religion, should they be forced to get health insurance?

I think it is fairly clear what the people want - healthcare for all, at an affordable price, with choices. Depending on their party the candidate picks a plan to put into action. Problem is I think the issue is not coming up with a plan. I think the issue is actually implementing it. Several people have tried and failed to reform the healthcare system, to address the basic issue of high costs. A complex set of issues seem to affect the system, vested interests being one of them. Can this be fixed? Like with say the goal of "making everyone literate" there are lots of plans. Successfully making them work is an entirely different ballgame.