Clueless

Commentary By Ron Beasley

I remain convinced that no meaningful health care reform is possible at the is time.  Ezra Klein does a really good job of explaining why - the majority of Americans are insulated from the reality of just how dysfunctional the US health care system is.

About 160 million Americans receive health coverage through their
employers. In general, the employer picks up 73 percent of the tab.
This seems like a good deal. In reality, that money comes out of wages.

As Ezekiel Emanuel, who advises Office of Management and Budget
Director Peter Orszag on health-care policy, has pointed out,
health-care premiums have risen by 300 percent over the past 30 years
(and that's after adjusting for inflation). Corporate profit per
employee has soared by 200 percent. Hourly earnings for workers,
adjusted for inflation, have fallen. The wage increases have been
consumed by health-care costs.

Another 80 million Americans are on public plans, mainly Medicare
and Medicaid. Those costs are paid by taxpayers. And about 46 million
Americans are uninsured. The costs for their care are shifted to the
insured: This raises premiums for the average family by $1,100 each
year, according to an analysis by Ben Furnas and Peter Harbage of the
Center for American Progress.

Most Americans are clueless about the cost of health care and how much it really costs them  Another thing that many of them don't realize is that good job they used to have was outsourced in part because of the cost of employer based  health insurance. Toyota built their latest plant in Canada because they could build cars there for 15% less in large part because of health insurance.

We don't need to reform the current system we need to throw it out and start from scratch.  That means ending the employer based insurance and going to single payer -  Medicare for all.  That will both reduce health care costs and make US manufacturers more competitive making it possible to rebuild our manufacturing base.  This won't happen until Americans are no longer insulated from reality. 

I disagree with Ezra here:

But making the system a bit better, a bit quicker and a bit more agile
-- we can do that. And until the stove gets hot enough, it may be all
we can do.

If that's all we can do we are better off doing nothing at all.  It won't be long before reality hits the majority of Americans in the face and we can do what really needs to be done.