Health Care Reform Links

The day of the health care summit has finally arrived.  You can learn all about it and watch it live here.  Here's the letter sent to members of Congress about it.  Since the House and Senate have passed two different versions of the plan, President Obama promised to put together his own plan to present at the summit as the Democrats' plan -- though the plan is much closer to the Senate version than to the House version.  That plan was posted to the White House on Monday, but the White House staff says they're still waiting for Republicans to send in theirs.  Meanwhile, after getting hammered for months over their socialist plan to reform health care, the White House's new strategy is to point out all the parts of their plan that were originally proposed by Republicans.

-Here's an excellent table summarizing everything that Obama has put in his plan.

-It looks unlikely that the so-called "public option" will be included in any bill passed by Congress.  A number of senators have said that it doesn't have the votes to pass and, therefore, they won't be voting for it.  Nate Silver says if they were honest they'd say it doesn't have the votes to pass because I'm not voting for it.  Paul Krugman argues that a public option is needed because 1.) it holds down administrative costs, 2.) provides competition, and 3.) an individual mandate is necessary, but is only politically feasible if people aren't forced to buy insurance from the current private insurance companies.  In another post, Krugman argues that markets simply can't cure health care.

-Recent polling finds a majority of Americans say they're opposed to the health care plan, but are in favor of most of the major parts.  After reporting their opinions on these parts, a plurality supports the health care plan.  The Economist breaks down these results in another excellent table here and asks what, exactly, those who support most parts of the plan but still oppose the plan actually want.

-Some think that the recent spate of astronomical insurance rate hikes might ultimately allow the health care plan to pass.  The media has been reporting for years (for example, here) that medical costs are rising, but the nearly 40% increase by Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield may be a focusing event that opens up a policy window.

-One main complaint among Republicans is that the current health care bill doesn't address tort reform in order to shrink the cost of medical malpractice insurance.  This has prompted many Democrats to argue that medical malpractice only makes up less than 5% of medical costs -- the NY Times, partially in response writes that small ideas won't fix health care.  But here's a little bit more interesting take from the Economist: one writer says that while medical malpractice lawsuits don't really occur in Europe, it's because there's a trade-off -- doctors get paid far less in exchange for less responsibility and patients get their health care paid for by the government in exchange for fewer rights to sue.