JamesT's blog

Ezra Klein highlights a Kaiser Family Foundation report that discusses health care inflation:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/09/a_number_is_worth_a_...

He observes that the average cost of a family health insurance policy in 2009 was $13,375, and has grown at a rate nearly four times faster than wages. If we continue on the current trajectory, a family policy in 2019 will cost between $24,000-30,000. It's hard to get one's mind around these numbers.

Health reform naysayers must be challenged about how they expect to reign in such health care inflation without significant reform. And, Blue Dog Democrats and fellow travelers must be asked how they plan to contain costs without a public option. I understand and respect that for many, the prospect of change looks scary. To me, the possibility of staying the course looms even scarier.

The following article is coming out in this week's New England Journal of Medicine:

http://healthcarereform.nejm.org/?p=1790

In a nationally representative random sample of physicians, 73% stated support for a public insurance option (63%) or single-payer healthcare (10%). The people on the front line of delivering health care, who have potentially the most to be concerned about in terms of income, practice freedom and so forth, are overwhelmingly in favor of a public option. This is really quite extraordinary and needs to be disseminated far and wide.

What a long way we've come since the days when the AMA tried to kill Medicare by calling it socialism (sound familiar?) and did help kill the Clinton health care plan.