That there is something wrong with the healthcare industry in this country is obvious. We spend almost 1/6 of our GDP on healthcare, ranking us with such nations as Malawi, Nauru, Timor, and the Marshall Islands, and still millions are without coverage. There is no way a blog entry is going to cover every area of concern, but what we can do is point you, gentle reader, to some sites of importance which will inform our discussion of this topic. There are various remedies to this situation being floated in Congress; this site from the Kaiser Family Foundation allows a side-by-side comparison of them. Included on this comprehensive site are poll results, reports, histories, timelines, and testimonies. A great place to start looking. The Obama administration has HealthReform.gov highlighting their efforts on this topic. You will find a weekly video update on health reform as well as a plethora of reports. On this American Medical Association site, see Obama’s speech at its 2009 annual meeting as well as read a transcript of his remarks on health reform. This AMA site also presents its case for health reform. The Congressional plan getting the most scrutiny at the moment is the Senate HELP’s(Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committee, chaired by Senator Kennedy) Affordable Health Choice Act of 2009. This 615 page document has been examined by the Congressional Budget Office, whose Preliminary Analysis should be read. The always reliable, non-partisan Congressional Research Service(essentially a private research branch of the Library of Congress) has issued some salient reports: Health Care Reform: An Introduction (April 2009); Unemployment and Health Insurance: Current Legislation and Issues (March 2009); Health Insurance Reform and the 111th Congress (May 2009); Health Insurance Coverage of People Aged 55 to 64 (July 2008); and Health Insurance: A Primer (January 2008). Other governmental reports: Paying for Health Care Reform (White House); Economic Case for Health Reform (Council of Economic Advisers); The Budgetary Treatment of Proposals to Change the Nation’s Health Insurance System (CBO); Financing Comprehensive Health Care Reform (Senate Finance Committee); and Expanding Health Care Coverage (Senate Finance Committee). Additional sources of information include: Health Insurance Mandates in the States 2009 (Council for Affordable Health Insurance); State Health Programs to Cover the Uninsured and Access to Health Care (both from the National Conference of State Legislatures); and Health Reform (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation). A current, informative site in health care reform is found at the New York Times. Key Players: Health Care Reform and the similarly-titled Key Players in Health Care Reform Debate should be used by those of us who need a scorecard. And do not forget MSNBC’s Decoding the Health Care Debate – A Glossary. CNN’s What You Need to Know About Health Care Reform presents much information in a Q&A format.A couple of good articles to read: The Cost Conundrum(The New Yorker) and Slowing the Growth of Health Care Costs – Lessons from Regional Variation (New England Journal of Medicine).
