When Tom Daschle, the incoming president’s choice to tackle health care reform, spoke in Denver recently he painted a compelling picture of a broken system.
He detailed high costs, low quality, poor access and the nation’s seeming acceptance of the country’s dismal world ranking in health care.
“How long would this country stand for being 31st in the Olympics?” Daschle asked.
It’s a great line and a valid point. And this page has long advocated an overhaul that makes health care more affordable and available to the uninsured. But it’s also clear the nation’s economic woes and the enormous debt the country is incurring in bailouts very well may delay full implementation of the Obama administration’s ambitious health care reform plans.
President-elect Barack Obama recently said health care changes will be among the elements of his administration’s economic recovery plan.
“It’s not something that we can put off because we are in an emergency,” Obama said. “This is part of the emergency.”
However, the reforms the incoming administration is talking about, at least initially, include increased federal Medicaid money, investments in health information technology, funds to retrain medical workers, extension of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and expanding COBRA, the law that allows unemployed people to buy health insurance through a former employer’s plan.
Those are important needs. In particular, we have previously supported additional Medicaid money as a way to support institutions such as Denver Health, which is struggling with increased numbers of people who have no way to pay for health care. But they are more a down payment on an overhaul than a reworking of the system itself.
Democrats are said to be increasingly optimistic that they can get a health care revision through Congress. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Denver, told us Thursday she senses momentum on the issue and pledged to be intimately involved on revising the health care system.
As Obama’s choice for health and human services secretary, Daschle, the former Democratic leader in the U.S. Senate, will have a bully pulpit from which to push for reform. One of those is likely to be the creation of a federal health insurance plan that is sure to be controversial.
Obama’s health care reform platform included extending coverage to the nation’s 45 million uninsured through expansion of public and private programs and would involve federal subsidies and mandates.
Sweeping health care reform has been an elusive goal for decades, not just because of the sensitive politics involved but also because of the cost.
We hope the Obama administration finds a way to traverse those landmines, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see such progress measured in small victories rather than wholesale change.
