EDITORIAL
With the introduction of healthcare reforms, as passed and signed into law last month, both those who supported and those who opposed the reform are now scratching their heads.
Now what? The fight will continue for months. There will be no easy transition. While the American Medical Association and even the insurance industry (after the public option component was nixed) support this reform, there are numous groups still working to take it apart.
Of course, these facts have been pointed out through the media.
But the best commentary on the situation came this week from the New Yorker, in its “Talk of the Town” column.
Seems that in 1965, when Medicare was being implemented, there were groups, including the AMA back then, opposing the new legislation. It was not a smooth transition, and Medicare faced “rearguard attacks,” as the New Yorker reports.
Today’s legislation faces attacks as well, this time from party politics; Republicans are making this issue into a mid-term election fight. History could teach us though, while there might be a rocky start, something good could come out of the reform.
The rocky part could well be the fight between the national government requiring everyone to participate – and the mantra from many opponents that they want local control.
Which way is it?
Looking deep into the healthcare reform package is the idea that communities – meaning cities, counties and states – will have to plan ways to control costs. States have to put together a health care insurance exchange. Hospitals will be expected to find out how to best control their costs – whether through administration, whether by sending practitioners to teach about health problems, or by tackling a local community health problem in the schools. The innovation rests with us, the locals.
So, with this new plan, it is up to us, not the government. The government is only there to make sure that this time around, everyone takes part in the preventive program, rather than ending up in the emergency room with a condition that could have been dealt with in advance.
Either way we pay. History should teach us that prevention pays, while waiting costs. Maybe in the long run, we will end up paying less.
