In general the experts have some valid points, the public show be more aware and accept more responsibility. Part of this is decades of left wing nonsense and entitlement, I mean drug companies and insurance companies are guilty, spare me. Anyway the discrepancy between the two opinions could lead to serious trouble according to Drew Altman, Doctor and president of the foundation:
These differences between experts and the public matter because key elements of health reform which elected officials expect to resonate with the public could get a decidedly less enthusiastic reception than expected if more is not done to close the gap in basic premises and beliefs between experts and the public. Most fundamentally, the challenge is to educate the public about why health costs are rising as fast as they are in the U.S. As long as people think we can solve the problem of rising health care costs simply by eliminating waste, fraud and profiteering, the hard choices they hear experts and leaders talking about will not make much sense to them. But it's a lot easier to rail against the latest rip-off in the health care system if you are a politician or do another news story on Medicare fraud if you are a journalist than it is to talk about why medical technologies people want cost us so much. Perhaps we need Ross Perot back with his charts and graphs, this time with basic facts about why we have the problems we do in the health care system.
Perhaps, but what journalist or politician is going to tell people that health care is not perfect and never will be. Doctors may say such things to each other off line, but in political world that ball ain't gonna fly. By the way the Kaiser site is super cool and I would highly recommend that readers of this blog look at it if they wish to get their hands on basic data about health care. For example look at this chart:
Health Insurance Coverage in the U.S., 2007. A slightly larger share of Americans are uninsured (15%) than covered by Medicare (14%).
Oh that 15% uninsured, invincible, the lazy, those who truly can't afford insurance and rely on the emergency room. Why should the 60% with coverage have our programs overturned for 15%?
If the public option is patterned after the health insurance offered to Congress, that seems the way to go. Cooperatives are not likely to have enough power to make needed changes. Insurance costs are not the only problem, but they are a costly one for our society. Other countries have reined them in successfully without running them out of business.
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