Health Care and The Federal Government

The current debate surrounding the federal government’s proposed legislation regarding health care has become very heated and unusually controversial.  There appears to be several primary reasons for this.  While most people recognize that there are significant issues with our overall health care system that need to be addressed, there is widespread reluctance to having the government take over running the system.  Not only do people have little trust/confidence in government institutions (e.g. in a recent poll, only 14% rate the performance of congress good or excellent) but also past performance of large government run programs is abysmal (e.g. Medicare, social security and the postal service are all going broke).  In spite of the problems with our health care system, the U.S. health care system remains the best in the world and the best that humans have yet devised.  Thus, wholesale replacement of the system, especially by one run by the federal government, is strongly opposed.  Add to this the fear that people foresee if federal bureaucrats are interposed between them and their physicians in making medical decisions and the rationale of the opposition is understandable.

A more palatable approach would be for the government to play the role of facilitator in task force sessions bringing together medical providers, payers and consumers.  It would seem that reforms coming from such a group would have a much better chance of gaining public support than bills coming from congress.