Last Call on Reforming Health Reform Bill

By DAVID LEONHARDT
NYT

I recently sat in on the daily meeting of a palliative care team at a hospital — doctors, nurses, a social worker, a chaplain and others, all working with seriously ill patients in extreme pain. One of the patients was a middle-aged man whose advanced cancer had destroyed a major bone in his leg. His wife had already done heroic work caring for him, and more was going to be needed in the months ahead.

But she had a problem: she was on the verge of using up her medical leave time. To continue caring for her husband, she would have to quit her job. If she quit her job, the couple would eventually lose their health insurance.

Both the health care bill passed by the House of Representatives and the one that the Senate seems set to pass on Christmas Eve would begin to do away with such terrible choices, by making health insurance available to most everyone. That, by itself, would be a grand achievement.

It’s not enough, though. Our health care system, as I’m sure you have heard by now, also suffers from soaring costs and uneven quality. For health reform to be a success, it needs to make major progress on those problems, too.

(More here.)