With a New Congress and the campaigns for the Whitehouse in ’08 in full swing, both progressives and conservatives agree that healthcare reform especially as it regards affordable medical insurance is at the forefront of the minds of most Americans. And while legislatures and pundits on both sides of the aisle agree that the time is now for healthcare reforms, at what pace such changes occur is still an issue of wide debate. Healthcare reform has been an issue that has been approached much like the taste of saliva in ones mouth, when taken in little tiny doses overtime like it usually is, it doesn’t bother us much at all, in fact we hardly notice it is there – but no one would like to sit down and drink a whole glassful. And many agree that hard-hitting and sweeping changes to our current health insurance polices and health delivery system will be equally hard to swallow, by consumers as well as the healthcare and insurance industries.
Incremental steps seem to be the best approach for all concerned, such as the current push on both the federal and state levels to get cost effective health insurance for all children. Good first steps all agree. But the real first step to true healthcare and health insurance reform is to get a handle on just what exactly needs fixing. Certainly the 47 million Americans without insurance is a good part of the problem, but it is not the only problem. Sweeping healthcare reform that could at the wave of a magic wand suddenly insure every man, woman and child in the nation – would do nothing to solve problems of disparity in the healthcare system, or to curtail costs, or solve other access and delivery issues.
