Monday, October 26, 2009
Dr Krugman looks to the future
What will the future of healthcare hold now that the heath insurance reform package is poised to pass. For that he examines the Massachusetts experience and how it has wide approval despite some major flaws.
To be sure, Massachusetts isn’t fully representative of America as a whole. Even before reform, it had relatively broad insurance coverage, in part because of a large union movement. And the state has a tradition of strong insurance regulation, which has probably made it easier to run a system that depends crucially on having regulators ride herd on insurers.Somebody should tell that to President Obama and his evil twin Rahmbo.
So national reform’s chances will be better if it contains elements lacking in Massachusetts — in particular, a real public option to keep insurers honest (and fend off charges that the individual mandate is just an insurance-industry profit grab). We can only hope that reports that the Obama administration is trying to block a public option are overblown.
Still, if the Massachusetts experience is any guide, health care reform will have broad public support once it’s in place and the scare stories are proved false. The new health care system will be criticized; people will demand changes and improvements; but only a small minority will want reform reversed.
This thing is going to work.
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