The health care debate is starting to heat up on the hill these days. Just yesterday I saw Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) railing against the idea of nationalized health care on C-SPAN. Well, the media is loathe to be left out of any debate, so here’s some of what I’ve seen floating around that series of tubes we call the internet.
Here’s a good intro to the subject from USA Today. The bulleted list at the end is a good way to quickly familiarize yourself with the ideas being thrown around. If you’re more into the nitty gritty, this analysis from the Congressional Budget Office might be more your style.
The Editors at The New Republic think that we could probably reform health care this country without nationalizing, but they don’t recommend it.
An article at Politico says that Senator Ted Kennedy‘s (D-MA) health care plan would cost $1 trillion and leave an estimated 37 million people without health coverage.
Meanwhile, over at the Weekly Standard’s blog…Matthew Continetti discussed the cost of torts on doctors in the United States and the effects of malpractice lawsuits on the cost of health care. CQ delved a bit deeper into the issue of medical malpractice with this article that looks at the difficulties any bill that does not address malpractice will face from the American Medical Association.
The New York Times posted an article that stated that the AMA opposes government sponsored insurance, but the AMA released a statement that claimed that the NYT article was misleading. From the statement:
“The AMA opposes any public plan that forces physicians to participate, expands the fiscally-challenged Medicare program or pays Medicare rates, but the AMA is willing to consider other variations of a public plan that are currently under discussion in Congress.”
Lawrence A. Hunter at the National Review says that Obama’s Healthcare is HillaryCare all over again. Meanwhile, the Editors at the National Review see this whole debate as an opportunity for Republicans to watch the Democrats splinter.
David Brooks wrote his weekly New York Times column about health care today. He imagined how health care reform could come to fruition.
Finally, the League of Ordinary Gentlemen have a five part series on health care reform that’s worth a read.
