Friday, January 22, 2010
Old Doc Krugman's prescription for Health Insurance Reform
Doc believes that the House should pass the Senate bill as is and use a reconciliation bill to pass corrections on some of the more disturbing flaws in the bill. He explains his reasoning in the column today. More importantly, he lays out why the Democrats need to do something and not take all year on it.
Now, part of Democrats’ problem since Tuesday’s special election has been that they have been waiting in vain for leadership from the White House, where Mr. Obama has conspicuously failed to rise to the occasion.By now, Congress should have figured out that the anger that put Noodles Brown in the Senate was anger at the failure to do more with HIR, not less. Reconcilition gives them a chance to restore the public option, or give us a Medicare buy-in and make the Wall St bonus grabbers pay for it.
But members of Congress, who were sent to Washington to serve the public, don’t have the right to hide behind the president’s passivity.
Bear in mind that the horrors of health insurance — outrageous premiums, coverage denied to those who need it most and dropped when you actually get sick — will get only worse if reform fails, and insurance companies know that they’re off the hook. And voters will blame politicians who, when they had a chance to do something, made excuses instead.
Ladies and gentlemen, the nation is waiting. Stop whining, and do what needs to be done.
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