Healthcare Bill Passes, Now Things Get Interesting
The Congress has finally passed their healthcare reform bill. Supposedly it will lead to universal healthcare, but as Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, now that the bill has passed, we can find out what is actually in it. A number of problems with the bill can be pointed out, among them that it largely won’t actually go into effect for years, that it will likely expand the deficit (not reduce it), and that it won’t really result in truly universal healthcare.
But perhaps one of the greatest travesties of this healthcare reform bill is that it has not confronted some of the most profound issues from which the healthcare crisis in the US stems. Healthcare, like any other product, is determined by supply and demand. Partly as a result of the mind-numbing emphasis on insurance, the whole debate between right and left over the last year has focused, broadly, on the supply side of American healthcare. This is problematic for a simple reason: the real problems are on the demand side. And the demand side is informed by such phenomena as the obesity epidemic, the awful health and lifestyle of American schoolchildren, and the plethora of prescription drug advertisements. As long as issues like these and others are not adequately addressed, healthcare in the US will remain dreadfully broken, no matter who’s paying for it—the government or the private sector.
The best and most important effect of this legislation is the foundation laid for real universal healthcare, and proper financial and organizational management thereof. Within the framework of a new and improved social contract, advances will now necessarily be feasible in areas of financing and regulation. The really interesting thing to see in the years to come will be if the negative consequences of this bill overwhelm the positive effects.
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