HEALTH CHECKUP
HEALTH CHECKUP
Raleigh News & amp; Observer: The last time people in high places in Washington seriously weighed the system of health care in the United States there were 37 million uninsured Americans. Today there are 41 million-plus. Among other things, that sad kind of "progress" was in the forefront of the National Academy of Sciences' thinking when it urged the Bush administration to test some possible solutions to the crisis in the nation's health care system.
What pops up immediately in the academy's report to the president and his secretary of health and human services, Tommy G. Thompson, is a recommendation that they look at universal health care again. That's like asking them to take hold of a horseshoe right out of the forge, considering how badly the Clinton administration got burned on that score. Congress -- joined by the Health Insurance Association of America and, among others, the National Federation of Independent Business -- walked all over Hillary Rodham Clinton and her task force's proposals.
Counterattack
The proposals' merits were lost in the counterattack from Republicans and their allies in the health care industry. Who could soon forget a $6.5 million television campaign, backed by 300 health insurance companies, in which actors portraying "Harry and Louise" cast proposed reforms in the worst possible light?
In view of that history, it's mildly surprising that Secretary Thompson even requested the new study. Yet since he came to Washington from the governorship of Wisconsin, it's clear Thompson has learned something beyond the hype of Harry and Louise. A search for health insurance that is affordable, and for protection of the one in seven Americans not insured, is hardly confined to Democrats or to the liberals in either major party. Even the National Federation of Independent Business, writes Robert Pear of The New York Times, is among President Bush's usual allies now pleading for help on health insurance. That's not surprising when the cost of such insurance keeps increasing at a rate of more than 12 percent a year.
Crisis
Even so, before there's a dangerous blood pressure jump for folks on either side of the universal health care debate, they can be assured that the report to the president hardly envisions major change soon. Though the panel appointed by the academy's Institute of Medicine says the American health care system "is confronting a crisis," its proposals are for an experimental, go-slow approach.
In the panel's view, three to five states should get involved in a pilot project of affordable insurance coverage for all citizens and legal residents.