Thinking back to the primary battle in the Democratic Party I love how this article starts in last week’s issue of The New England Journal of Medicine:
The Clinton administration’s ill-fated 1993 Health Security Act has at last become a model for health care reform — though not in the way its architects envisioned. The Obama administration and congressional reformers are using the Clinton plan as a blueprint for how not to pass health care legislation. In 2009, reformers are pursuing a strategy that, in key respects, does exactly the opposite of what the Clinton administration tried in 1993 and 1994.
Doing everything the opposite of how Hillary did it does sound like a good model.
Incidentally, I noticed that all the articles related to health care reform are free to non-subscribers (while most of the issue is only available to subscribers). As I subscribe I don’t generally pay attention to what is free and what is for subscribers, but if last week’s issue is typical, those interested in health care reform want to check out the free articles there.
This week’s issue, not yet available on line, includes an article on market-oriented health care which considers the idea generally promoted by Republicans that placing more responsibility on consumers to control health care costs does not work. This includes reasons such as that consumers are not in a good position to make such decisions and that “increased consumer cost sharing causes unintended reductions in the use of services which are important for better health.”
The moral of these two articles is that we should do everything the opposite of Hillary, but now how McCain and other Republicans recommend.