I’m happy that the healthcare bill was passed but I recognize it’s imperfect and I have many issues with it. The editors at The Economist posted a good debate on the issue.
It’s troubling that conservatives choose to spew angry rhetoric (calling it socialism or a government takeover) instead of debating its problems which I agree are many. A former co-worker of mine was calling it socialism on Facebook yet he doesn’t consider his alma mater public university to be an example of socialism. If you told a new parent that the government could pay for either healthcare or education for their new child, which do you think they would choose?
The bill really isn’t that radical and it’s fairly close to Mitt Romney’s plan in Massachusetts. It even takes on many of the ideas that Republicans put forth in response to Clintoncare. David Frum, conservative, wrote a great piece on where Republicans went wrong in this debate. Unfortunately he lost his job for it, which demonstrates that the right is unwilling to accept any criticism.
One thing I find humorous is the number of people arguing against the bill and consider themselves knowledgeable on the issue but don’t know how we ended up with our current system of employer paid healthcare. (FYI, it was a result of wages controls put in place during WWII.) Here’s a great piece from This American Life and NPR explaining our health care system.
Tags: healthcare, Politics