Health-Care Insurance Reform

As a citizen, I am still constantly asking whether government can make my life better or worse. I do not think that debate will ever end because of the evolving nature of our electoral politics, populace and information transparency. I hope the recent historic steps by the Obama administration and the Democrats to change health-care insurance reform will prove 1) cost-effective in the long run and 2) provide more health care to those who do not have it now or will need it later. One thing that it has shown me is that Obama can actually lead, but we'll see if it is in the right direction as history unfolds.

In the meantime, here is an interesting post that I read over at DiA. I think it will pique the interest of those in the pro-Rand camp (let me know if you disagree):

As of yesterday, America had the most screwed-up health-insurance system in the developed world. As of today, America probably still has the most screwed-up health-insurance system in the developed world, but it's significantly less screwed-up than it was yesterday. The American health-insurance system we had yesterday was screwed up in many, many ways, but the most fundamental symptom of its dysfunction was that it failed to insure 17% of the population. Today, we are on the way to getting 95% of Americans insured by the end of the decade. The law will do that in part through increasing efficiency. In part, however, it's going to extend government subsidies so that more people can buy insurance. It pays for those subsidies in two ways: it taxes the rich; and, more importantly, it redistributes existing government benefits from those who have them to those who don’t. 

More:

In short, those who oppose this bill because it's a Robin Hood bill are not wrong. It does involve redistribution. But that redistribution is largely about reducing the unfairness of redistribution that already exists. There's no reason why taxpayers should be subsidising the health-insurance premiums of people who work for large companies but not those who own small businesses, why sick people who pay high insurance premiums should be subsidising the emergency-room guarantee for healthy young people who choose not to buy insurance, or why we should all be paying the insurance premiums of a wealthy 65-year-old while doing nothing for a working-class 64-year-old. The new system isn't going to eliminate the unfairness and discrimination in the American health-insurance system; we didn't turn into the Netherlands overnight, let alone France. But we do wake up today with a system that's significantly less unfair than it was yesterday, and most of that has to do with a fairer distribution of the benefits the government was already handing out.

Read more here.