A short history of health care. Slate column sort of reviewing New Republic editor Jonathan Cohn’s book Sick: The Untold Story of America’s Health Care Crisis—and the People Who Pay the Price that is refreshingly honest about the state of healthcare in the United States. “The problems inherent in the U.S. system of health care are literally killing people.” and: “The overall trend—the gift of an increasingly market-driven health-care system—is Read More...
…who have a Republican governor seem to be close to an affordable health insurance plan for all residents. Thanks for all the email bringing this up. Hopefully, other states will look at this and follow suit. UPDATE: Boston.com story here. The legislation isn’t complete as of this writing, and it appears that lower income people will be covered without a fee.
A more current piece by Malcolm Gladwell (originally published in the New Yorker), refining his views on healthcare in America. “But moral hazard has profoundly shaped the way think tanks formulate policy and the way experts argue and the way health insurers structure their plans and the way legislation and regulations have been written. The health-care mess isn’t merely the unintentional result of political dysfunction, in other words. It is Read More...
There is a great discussion about health care from March, 2000 over at the Washington Monthly between Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Gopnik. I was particularly moved by this: The crucial point is, I think, the difference in social tone between a society in which universal access to medical care is taken for granted and one in which it is something that weighs constantly on all of us, even though some Read More...
Peter Jennings anchored his final report on the state of healthcare in the U.S. It examined a few points about what is wrong in the system and where the costs are coming from. You can watch a behind the scenes Charlie Gibson interview with Jennings’ widow and some snippets of the report here (click the right hand sidebar video image which will launch a popup on ABC’s Primetime site). In Read More...