Opinion Pieces Examine Prospects for Health Care Reform
Summaries of two opinion pieces related to health care reform appear below.
- Grace-Marie Turner, Detroit News: There "are lessons to be learned from Europe" as U.S. lawmakers consider health reform proposals, Turner, president of the Galen Institute, writes in a News opinion piece. She adds, "Countries that have advanced much farther down the road toward government involvement in their health sectors can help Americans learn what we would best avoid." She cautions, "In government-run systems, cutting costs often simply means cutting care." Turner concludes, "If reform means following Europe down the road to higher costs and cuts in treatment, we have a moral and fiscal imperative to say 'No,'" adding, "We must instead build on the innovation and quality of American health care, putting doctors and patients in charge of medical decisions and offering people more choices of more affordable health care and insurance" (Turner, Detroit News, 4/6).
- E.J. Dionne, Washington Post: "Yes, this is the year Congress will finally give every American access to health insurance," though "[g]etting there won't be pretty," Post columnist Dionne writes. Dionne continues, "What matters is that members of Congress have quietly been preparing the ground for reform since the Democrats took over two years ago" and "the competing interest groups seem more inclined to get what they can out of reform than to stop the enterprise altogether." He writes, "There are still obstacles," such as the debate over a public health insurance option and the cost of health reform. Dionne concludes that President Obama "has invested too much in health care reform to lose this fight. So he won't" (Dionne, Washington Post, 4/6).
