[Excerpted from an opinion column by Froma Harrop, Providence Journal, distributed by Creators Syndicate]
For now, let's drop the talk about wanting a liberal America or a conservative America. What we truly need is a modern America. No country can be modern spending twice what its rich competitors do on health care while leaving millions without any coverage.
If the U.S. Supreme Court declares the essential "individual mandate" in the federal Affordable Care Act unconstitutional — or Republicans throw out the reforms — then it's back to the past, back to the economy-dragging health care mess we've been calling a "system."
Republicans say that Americans don't want top-down government control of their health care. But what we have now is top-down corporate control of health care. Insurers, drugmakers, sellers of expensive equipment, hospital executives, labs, home-health-care services and many unnamed others prosper by exploiting the chaos in our health care system.
Here's the point of an individual mandate requiring the uninsured to obtain coverage. The reforms call for state-run health-insurance exchanges, where the uncovered can find affordable health plans.
The plans can't remain solvent if young and healthy people can choose not to join them, leaving an insurance pool heavy with expensive sick people.
Only government can force order into the jungle of profitable waste and crazy cross-subsidies — most of it piled on the backs of taxpayers and employers. America can't be modern without a system of universal coverage that promotes wise use of health care resources. Let's stop fooling around and get on with it.
[To find out more about Froma Harrop, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.]
COPYRIGHT 2012 THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL CO.
Family health insurance can be pretty expensive. Nice find though.
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