Keep focus on lower costs
Published 3:49 pm Monday, February 22, 2010
Health care reform has returned to the political front burner, with a much-hyped “bipartisan” summit set for Thursday in the nation’s capital. Despite a month-long lull in the action, the stakes remain high.
We won’t hold our breath for any bipartisan breakthrough on Thursday. Little has changed politically since health care was last on the front pages, other than the Democrats losing their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. That forces them either to try to win over a Republican vote or two, or work their way around the filibuster rule.
Sound-bite rhetoric aside, it’s clear that neither side is in a mood to compromise. President Obama on Monday put forward a plan that’s essentially the one Senate Democrats were prepared to pass early in January, and Republican leaders promptly turned up their noses. Much as we’d love to be proven wrong, we don’t see any grand bargain in the making.
It’s too bad, because the GOP has good ideas to offer — meaningful interstate competition for insurance is one, reform of medical malpractice lawsuits is another. Alas, compromise is the art of giving in order to get, and congressional Republicans appear united against giving a thing. Democrats, hardly a model of give-and-take themselves, are on their own.
As such, they should move forward and pass reform, as long as it retains provisions that will begin to put downward pressure on health-care costs.
For example, Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell’s proposal to change the Medicare payment system to one that rewards the quality of care, not the sheer volume of it, is in the Senate bill. So are several pilot projects aimed at improving the coordination of care across the country, some of which grow from changes proven to work in our region.
Covering millions of Americans who currently aren’t insured will increase the rate of preventive care, catching many problems before they become expensive ones. It will also keep more people from accessing the health-care in the most costly and often inefficient way — through hospital emergency rooms.
Requiring everyone to obtain coverage, thereby increasing the overall health of insurance pools, will put to rest the practice of denying coverage to folks with pre-existing conditions. That in turn will allow such folks to change jobs without fear of losing their health insurance — a prescription for economic growth.
More delay will only mean more escalation in costs, and people continuing to go without the care they need in a nation where that should never happen. Democrats haven’t come up with a perfect plan, but if current provisions for reducing costs are left intact, it’s a good enough start. Further improvements can be made over time. First, we have to get started.
