Healthcare Problems, Policies, and Priorities

The Obama administration has an unprecedented set of problems: financial crisis, two wars, healthcare reform, energy policy, Iran, nuclear proliferation, education reform, and others. Having read, thought and taught strategy, I believe in making choices and prioritizing the use of resources. Although far from over, I think that the financial crisis is past the worst of the peril. Globally, the complex collection of problems in the Middle East and Central Asia are the highest priority. On the domestic front, I believe that healthcare reform is the most important. So today, I am going to comment on healthcare.

There are many thoughtful points of view on healthcare reform. The Obama administration's arguments in favor of an overhaul of the healthcare system include: increased coverage of the uninsured (was universal coverage, but this has been diluted due to costs), increased quality, reduced costs, and the public option. Proponents of healthcare reform include Paul Krugman (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/) and Robert Reich (http://robertreich.blogspot.com/). Opponents of the administration's approach to healthcare reform include Greg Mankiw (http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/) and Newt Gingrich (http://newt.org/). Persons with moderate views in favor of reform, but concerned about costs, include David Brooks (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/davidbrooks/index.html) and Ross Douthat (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/rossdouthat/index.html).

As I see it, the logic for healthcare reform follows this line of thinking; 1) the US pays more per person than any other developed country for healthcare but has health outcomes that are worse than most developed countries and 2) the US has about 40 million uninsured inhabitants which is a significant cause of the poor health outcomes and is not consistent with a highly civilized society. I believe that these arguments are compelling for increasing coverage, increasing quality, and decreasing costs of healthcare. In order to increase coverage and to keep private medical insurance costs in check, I think that the public option is absolutely necessary. Therefore, the final question is the cost and affordability to individuals and the nation. There is a good article on the Economix blog (http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/is-health-care-reform-worth-16-trillion/?hp) which puts the $ 1 trillion or $ 1.6 trillion over 10 years in context. Although a large amount of money, it is about 1% of GDP over the decade. I would argue that this total is reasonable to improve the health and fairness of the American society.

I believe that healthcare is a high priority problem that deserves a high priority reform. The reform should be accomplished with efficiency and effectiveness in order to maximize the benefits and minimize the costs. I am an IT professional and teacher and believe that healthcare IT is an important part of the solution. I will change my curricula this year to emphasize the importance and impact of IT to healthcare quality, coverage, efficiency, effectiveness, and cost.