Health Management

Obama says he would go for a single-payer health care system "if he was starting from scratch".  But since we can't do that, lets just stir the shitpot we have going right now:

But Obama repeated that he rejects an immediate shift to a single-payer system. “Given that a lot of people work for insurance companies, a lot of people work for HMOs. You’ve got a whole system of institutions that have been set up,” he said at a roundtable discussion with women Monday morning after a voter asked, “Why not single payer?”

“People don’t have time to wait,” Obama said. “They need relief now. So my attitude is let’s build up the system we got, let’s make it more efficient, we may be over time—as we make the system more efficient and everybody’s covered—decide that there are other ways for us to provide care more effectively.”

Obama is too hung up on his middle-of-the-road baloney to actually do something bold and effective.  If a reformed health care system doesn't have universal risk pooling, prevention of adverse selection, prevention of underinsurance, and guaranteed enrollment in a plan, then we are just going to waddle along in a big screwed up system that bankrupts people and leaves most of us dependent on corporations for our healthcare.  I have no illusions that Obama's promise to create a government-run plan that people could purchase is going to yield anything affordable, meaningful, or comprehensive.

While I will be happy when the Republicans are booted out of power, failure to achieve meaningful reform in the health care arena will make me sad throughout Obama's term(s) in office.