Centerfield

I have a question for John Kerry. John, do you think that championing this bill helps you win the votes of adult parents who already have health insurance, or you think it makes it easier for them to turn away from you and the democratic party?

bk:

Given that the Republicans are working on a bill that would take away tax breaks for businesses who provide health insurance for their employees...it's pretty smart for Kerry to jump on this one.

So the answer to your question is "yeah". I believe Kerry think it will get him votes.

It may have some political appeal.

Children are considered innocent and deserving of protection.

Adults without health insurance may be blamed for their predicament--they chose to move to New York and wait tables while trying to break in on Braodway, when they should have majored in accounting and gotten a professional job.

I believe what bk is referring to is the fact that children without health insurance typically live with adults that do not vote. Using Carla's point, Kerry should be attempting to ensure that the tax break for employers' contribution to health care stays intact.

Apart from how John Kerry will use this issue to regain the limelight, I'm bothered by another attempt to "piecemeal" the uninsursed issue. Speaking as a physician, it disturbs me that we in America can't do the "heavy lifting" of figuring out a comprehensive health coverage program. Like Clinton or not (and in many ways I didn't) at least he had the courage to address the issue head on. He was also correct in pointing out that no matter what we do (pass his program or not) we would have a national "system". The "system" we now have is obsessed with driving out costs at the same time demand increases. And so, of course, we have a "system" that provides more efficient care to fewer and fewer people.

Health care is like Social Security. "Let's leave it for another day." Yet each day we do nothing it gets worse.

OK, now off my soapbox.

Chris, you sound a lot like my brother, who is also a physician.

As I've said many times, we have the finest for-profit health care system in the world. It's the absolute best ever at producing profits. Where it fails is in providing cost-efficient health care to the bulk of the population. EX: We spend 99% of our health-care dollars on acute care, and less than 1% on preventative care.

We are going to end up with comprehensive coverage in one form or another. The big quesion is, are we going to bankrupt ourselves trying to do it while maintaining the profit margins of the insurers and corporations, or re-capture some of that wasted "overhead" money and apply it to actually providing health care?

I'm all in favor of healthcare reform that's more comprehensive. And even though I enjoy the benefit of an employer-subsidized plan, over the long term I'd prefer some sort of de-linking.

People talk an awful lot about the pains of losing your job, and rightfully so. I think that if we have an economy that runs efficiently by sometimes treating workers as disposable, then we need to minimize the shock for workers and foster transition. The fact of employers subsidizing health insurance and providing a group discount tends to INCREASE the pain of losing your job.

As far as Bush's tax reform plan goes, I'm willing to wait to see what's really in it. So far, all I have read is a leaked story that centers around a partial list of tax code changes that reads like a laundry list of boogeyman tailored for the democrats to beat their chests about.

Any evaluation of the proposed changes should take all the bouncing balls into account, not just bleat pointlessly about various things that sound lousy when considered alone.

You've nailed the problem with employer-funded health insurance. With job mobility increasing rapidly (for good or evil) and employers having coverage vestment periods for new hires, structural factors alone guarantee an increase in uninsured workers.

The only way around that is universal coverage. But universal coverage is too expensive unless some major efficiencies in service provision are realized, and there's several large armies of entrenched special interests to get through to reach that goal.

Kerry in 2008? I hope not. Kerry had his shot in 04 and blew it. To be honest, I was never a big fan of Kerry, but I voted for him because, unlike Bush, Kerry can think for himself. As for 2008, I am casting my lot with Gov. Mark Warner of VA.