Why we can't wait for health care reform

Sen. Lamar Alexander and many in the GOP continue to call for health care reform to be scrapped and that we "start over" with a "clean sheet" proposal.

But this news today illustrates why starting over now, in a process that is undefined by Alexander and his colleagues, and that could take an undetermined amount of time (but surely wouldn't start till after the mid-terms, and could quite clearly take years to accomplish anything after this bloody fight):

The number of uninsured adults and children in California swelled by 25 percent between 2007 and 2009, according to a new report by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles. One quarter of the state’s population is now uninsured, according to the analysis, and less than half of those with insurance receive it through employers. (NYT Health blog, today).

That jump in uninsureds shows how, in just two years, in the nation's most populous state, the crisis in insurance is unfolding in real time - not some future, possible scenario. People with individual plans (similar to my plan here in MN) are facing huge rate increases - up to 39% in a single year in CA. I'm facing a double bump this year that will add over 15% to my premium (a bump for annual cost inflation, plus an age bump as I join the 45 to 49 year olds).

Amid all the false rhetoric about a government takeover (the Obama plan is entirely predicated on private health insurance - how is that a take-over??) we see real risks to access to insurance - for millions of Californians. And to at least one Minnesotan. My income is not rising 15% this year to match the surge in what I pay personally for insurance (unless I make a serious job change in the midst of a major recession!).

As someone who is immersed in public policy work in my profession, who meets with both state and federal legislators or their staffers throughout the year on various issues, I assure you that I have a keen interest in democracy and citizen engagement. If I thought that the reform making its way through Congress was anti-democratic, was in any way fundamentally taking away anyone's rights, or was dangerous to the American way of life, I would oppose this legislation.

If health care reform was truly the undoing of democracy that some elements of the chattering classes claim, then I as a good government advocate and a person 'in the know' would be duty bound to share the alarm.

But I am calm and secure that this is not the case. It may be a departure from how Republicans would do policy, how they'd envision solving this serious problem facing our country, but it is not the bogeyman being trotted out full bore by the GOP. If the GOP had articulated a vision for health care reform, perhaps they'd be in power now and setting policy. But they did not, they lost the last election, and in a representative democracy, the winners get the chance to set policy. If voters hate it, then November 2010 will be the chance to say so.

--

One final note on the politics of the matter, and the risks: Given the above startling news out of California, there is a real risk to the GOP (and, by extension, the nation) that if this problem is not confronted head on, now, that things will get so bad that the public will be forced to demand a revolution in health care that will be far more sweeping, dramatic, and actually socialist in 15, 10 or even 5 years, than the moderate reforms being promulgated now.

Something to think about. Bitter medicine now may save us from seriously misguided policy change later if the tsunami of uninsureds and drastic price increases is not addressed speedily.