Critical by former Senator Tom Daschle is his view on the health care crisis and his proposal for fixing it. On the front of the dust jacket, Barack is quoted, "Sen. Daschle brings fresh thinking to this problem." And on the back of the dust jacket, a longer quote from Barack: "The American health-care system is in crisis, and workable solutions have been blocked for years by deeply entrenched ideological divisions. Sen. Daschle brings fresh thinking to this problem, and his Federal Reserve for Health concept holds great promise for bridging this intellectual chasm and, at long last, giving this nation the health care it deserves."
Personally I support a single payer system. However, with our decades long use of an employer-employee system, it may not be possible to move to a single payer system in one step. Barack supports a mixed system that blends our present system with coverage mandated for all citizens and prevents exclusion from coverage for pre-existing conditions. When health care cost less and employers were willing to offer health insurance at reasonable cost to the employee, our present system worked reasonably well. However, with costs rising and longterm employment at many firms a thing of the past, the present system is not working. Many jobs do not offer health care insurance and those that do are raising the cost to the employee.
The country has been trying to reform health care insurance since the days of Harry Truman. In fact, FDR wanted to include it with Social Security but was persuaded that it was politically impossible. Barack will craft a proposal that should make it into law if we support it and him without picking the proposal to pieces. I am certain that there will be provisions we like and others that we do not. We cannot give the opponents of health care reform openings by splitting our ranks.
Speaking only for myself as a health care worker who has both employer coverage and Medicare, I would like to see a single payer system. My present coverage usually works well for me. Where it does not work well is when two insurers may have to pay and then each tries to make the other primarily responsible. I want to get out from between the two insurers sniping at each other.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in what our health care system may become. Barack has put Tom Daschle in charge of health care reform. If you want to express your views, go to http://change.gov and give Barack and Tom your views. Alternately, you could join a Barack sponsored discussion group in your community or start one yourself.
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