{"id":234033,"date":"2010-01-26T11:38:09","date_gmt":"2010-01-26T16:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"tag:business.theatlantic.com,2010:\/\/3.34161"},"modified":"2010-01-26T10:29:16","modified_gmt":"2010-01-26T15:29:16","slug":"the-health-care-bill-is-worth-saving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/234033","title":{"rendered":"The Health Care Bill is Worth Saving"},"content":{"rendered":"

The health care bill languishing in the Senate is flawed. We should pass it, anyway.<\/p>\n

From the beginning, this bill has never been the radical reconstructive surgery that its critics have claimed — or, perhaps, that it should have been. Our health care system is deeply flawed. The employer subsidy shields health care costs from customers, encouraging us to consume more. The employer-provided care system keeps families from choosing their own coverage, and it forces us to lean on our bosses for health care, even when we want to switch jobs or start own own companies.<\/p>\n

The bill does not re-make our health system. It does not
\neven promise to make it better. Instead, this health care bill makes
\nthe system broader, with a chance to make it better. We can’t pass a
\nbill that takes away the government subsidy for employer-provided
\nhealth care, but we can start to tax employer plans. We can’t conjure a
\nfair and competitive health insurance market for individuals overnight,
\nbut we can begin to build one through the state and federal exchanges.
\nAs the employer tax grows (and it will) and the state and federal
\nexchanges grow (and they will), we could move toward something
\nresembling a real transparent market for insurance. Jonathan Rauch puts
\nit beautifully<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Taken together, these measures could set in motion a virtuous cycle. As
\nhealth costs rise, more employer-provided health plans become taxable,
\ngiving employers an incentive to find cheaper plans. As
\nemployer-provided plans grow less generous, more employees have an
\nincentive to take a tax credit and shop around, and, as premiums rise,
\nmore qualify to do so. Little by little, insurance coverage shifts
\ntoward an individual-based, consumer-driven market. And the faster
\nhealth insurance costs rise, the faster the transition happens.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You should read the whole thing<\/a>.


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The health care bill languishing in the Senate is flawed. We should pass it, anyway. From the beginning, this bill has never been the radical reconstructive surgery that its critics have claimed — or, perhaps, that it should have been. Our health care system is deeply flawed. The employer subsidy shields health care costs from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234033\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}