More on Health Care Reform

Nicholas Kristoff has a great column today on why the U.S. health care system has worse outcomes than just about every other industrialized nation. Note the graceful apology to his readers in Slovenia. :)

The Times Prescriptions blog has excellent coverage of an anti-reform rally going on right now in D.C. I quote the following:

Ms. Garloch, who has a combination of Medicare and private coverage, said insurance should be sold across state lines to increase competition.

But Ms. Garloch, like many in the crowd who while visibly angry. could not articulate the main problems in the health care system or how they should be solved.

Some of the same people warning of too much government spending also complained that Medicare does not provide sufficient coverage.

Ms. Garloch dismissed suggestions that some hospitals, like the Cleveland Clinic in her home state, had figured out ways to provide higher-quality medical outcomes at lower cost, indicating that there might be ways to cut costs without sacrificing patient care.

This is typical of the grass-roots opposition to health-care reform. Ms. Garloch is a Medicare beneficiary (that's government-provided, single-payer health insurance); she apparently doesn't understand what is wrong with the current system; she hasn't read enough about the Cleveland Clinic to understand how that excellent institution works and achieves better results with lower costs than almost any other hospital in the country. I am sure she knows the slogans, and I wish she would read more and move past the slogans.