Paul Hinderaker at Powerline quotes a message on the coming problems when health care reform is passed. The message is based on the flak British PM's get at question time over British health care (shortages here, problems there). My problem is the confusion of the writer, and of Paul for quoting it: the health care system we'll have after reform is implemented still won't look like the British system. Yes, it will have its problems, but they mostly won't be the sort of problems the UK has. I say "mostly" because, as T.R. Reid points out in his book, our current system is really a hodge-podge of different systems: Medicare/Medicaid is one system; militar and VA are another (much closer to UK than anything else), different systems in Massachusetts, Maryland, and Hawaii. That's not going to change that much under reform; we may have a less diverse system, but we're still going with the hodge-podge. That's the American way--decentralized, confused, and disorderly.
But as long as opponents don't understand, or willfully misunderstand, what we have and what's proposed, the quality of the public debate suffers.
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