Critical
What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A much-needed and hard-hitting plan, from one of the great Democratic minds of our time, to reform America's broken health-care system.
Undoubtedly, the biggest domestic policy issue in the coming years will be America's health-care system. Millions of Americans go without medical care because they can't afford it, and many others are mired in debt because they can't pay their medical bills. It's hard to think of another public policy problem that has lingered unaddressed for so long. Why have we failed to solve a problem that is such a high priority for so many citizens?
Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle believes the problem is rooted in the complexity of the health-care issue and the power of the interest groups—doctors, hospitals, insurers, drug companies, researchers, patient advocates—that have a direct stake in it. Rather than simply pointing out the major flaws and placing blame, Daschle offers key solutions and creates a blueprint for solving the crisis.
Daschle's solution lies in the Federal Reserve Board, which has overseen the equally complicated financial system with great success. A Fed-like health board would offer a public framework within which a private health-care system can operate more effectively and efficiently—insulated from political pressure yet accountable to elected officials and the American people. Daschle argues that this independent board would create a single standard of care and exert tremendous influence on every other provider and payer, even those in the private sector.
After decades of failed incremental measures, the American health-care system remains fundamentally broken and requires a comprehensive fix. With his bold and forward-looking plan, Daschle points us to the solution.
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The U.S. is "the only industrialized nation that does not guarantee necessary health care to all of its citizens," and as former senator Daschle observes, "Skeptics say we can't afford to cover everyone; the truth is that we can't afford not to" because U.S. economic competitiveness is being impeded by the large uninsured population and fast-rising health costs. Daschle's book delineates the weaknesses of previous attempts at national health coverage, outlines the complex economic factors and medical issues affecting coverage and sets forth plans for change. Daschle proposes creating a Federal Health Board, similar to the Federal Reserve System, whose structure, functions and enforcement capability would be "largely insulated from the politics and passion of the moment," in addition to a merging of employers' plans, Medicaid and Medicare with an expanded FEHBP (Federal Employee Health Benefits Program) that would cover everyone. "There is no more important issue facing our country," Daschle asserts, "than reform of our health-care system," and the book's "health-care horror stories" bring this immediacy home.
