Ted Kennedy, RIP

It feels deeply ironic to me that Ted Kennedy died last night, considering that health care reform is in its own death throes as we speak.

I happened to read Matt Taibbi's column on health care reform in Rolling Stone last night and I'm thoroughly depressed now. He notes, among other things, that big Pharma's and the insurance companies' interests are protected, that any employer mandate will be minimal via loopholes and grandfather clauses, and the main outcome is likely to be an individual mandate (requiring us all to buy health insurance) without any provision for a reasonably priced option (whether a govt program or even subsidized group care). As usual, the average citizen will not benefit and the big political donors will. And there is virtually nothing in any of the current bills that genuinely cuts costs.

Fareed Zakaria also notes in his most recent Newsweek column that we are doing nothing meaningful on this important topic:

It's not as if the problems aren't apparent to everyone, whatever your political persuasion. Costs are rising so fast that every day, more than 10,000 Americans lose their insurance coverage. In 1993, 61 percent of small businesses provided health insurance for their employees. Now that number is down to 38 percent. Larger firms face greater and greater health-care costs. And yet, Americans do worse on almost every health measure than most advanced industrial countries, which spend about half as much on health care per person and have proportionately more elderly people.

The political debate that is taking place is unreal, with conservatives suggesting that Obama is endorsing euthanasia and murder boards, and turning America into Russia. (I guess they haven't noticed that Russia isn't communist anymore.) The lack of serious discussion is a tragedy, because the Democrats' proposals leave much to be desired. They include only a few, vague measures to rein in costs, and the chief one—a medical board—assumes (improbably) that Congress will cede massive powers to five unelected people who would have the power to deny people treatments and drugs. The likely scenario is that expanded coverage and new benefits will be enacted, while the cuts and curbs will be pushed off to be tackled another day.

Health care is the nation's most serious long-term problem. But think of Social Security, government pension liabilities, state--government deficits, and energy dependence, and you face the same issue. Each one of these problems is getting worse by the day, and yet the political system seems unable to take them on and make major reforms. On these very important issues, America is caught in a downward spiral. It makes you wish for a crisis.