Health care: Think big

By GottaLaff

Awhile ago I posted about Obama's aiming for a New Deal-supersized approach, justifying his choices of surrounding himself with experienced "old hands" who could reliably accomplish such a huge undertaking.

Ezra Klein points out, “you don’t tap the former Senate Majority Leader to run your health care bureaucracy. That’s not his skill set. You tap him to get your health care plan through Congress.”

Since former President Clinton was the last Democrat who could provide that experience to so many, this is where (and why) many of Obama's picks have come from Clinton's team.

Think Progress has a great post on Obama's/Daschle's comprehensive approach to solving the health care crisis. Daschle, like Obama, is thinking big:

Incremental change in our system is no longer a viable option. Instead we need comprehensive reform. In growing numbers the American people are demanding that we do something. Our goal should be to build what current and retired members of Congress have today, and make that available for all Americans.

Here are a few of his ideas (way more details here):

- Expand the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), or create a group purchasing pool like it: Participants could choose their own provider and would have the security of knowing they could never lose their coverage. [...]
- Subsidize coverage for those who need it: The government would provide financial help on a sliding scale so nobody has to pay more than a certain percentage of their income for health insurance. [...]
- Strengthen Medicaid: Simplify and extend Medicaid to cover everyone below a certain income level. [...]
- Concentrate on the value of care: Strive to get more for our health care money by promoting research that compares drugs and treatments to determine which ones deliver the best bang for the buck. Daschle also proposes promoting prevention that would reduce the number of chronic conditions.
- Improve health care infrastructure: Adopt health information technology to lower expenses and allows rural residents to connect electronically with medical providers.

Plus, there's this:

Aside from supporting the basic principles of progressive reform, however, Daschle also proposes a Federal Health Board that “would resemble our current Federal Reserve Board for the banking industry.”

And Rahm Emanuel "challenged chief executives and other business leaders Tuesday night to join the new administration in a push for universal health care, saying incremental increases in coverage won't be acceptable."

I'm feeling healthier already. This is the kind of change we can believe in, and the kind we voted for.