Visualizing Health Care Reform

Analysis…

Paul Krugman of the New York Times asked an important question on Monday concerning health care reform: “How well will health reform work after it passes?”  We know the politics behind it, the controversies of public option and the fact that democrats have voting power within the senate…but what will health care look like within each state after it is passed?

Krugman compares the status of Massachusetts health care reform, which passed in 2006, to the state of the nation.  According to state estimates, only 2.6 percent of Massachusetts population remains uninsured; 79 percent believe the reform should be continued and 11 percent believe it should be repealed.

Krugman states:

“Still, if the Massachusetts experience is any guide, health care reform will have broad public support once it’s in place and the scare stories are proved false. The new health care system will be criticized; people will demand changes and improvements; but only a small minority will want reform reversed.

This thing is going to work.”

But will it be another four years before we see definite progress and positive spending?

Washington Post |  People are more likely to buckle their seat belt than follow the speed limit, even though the penalties for speeding are higher. They are more likely to go along with hotel efforts to reduce linen laundry if told that other guests are doing the same.
And the question of whether people will follow a government order that they carry health insurance — an issue that will help determine whether universal health care is a success or costly failure — will depend on more than the penalty they would pay for refusing, many economists say. This, they say, is the lesson of behavioral economics, a school of thought that holds that people do not necessarily make decisions out of well-reasoned self-interest. It is an approach that has gained a powerful foothold in the Obama White House.

Mahablog |  The bad news is that even if health care reform passes this year, it will be three or four years before most of the benefits, including the public option, kick in. Carrie Brown at the Politico writes that some Dems are pushing for some provisions (although not the public option) to kick by next year so the Dems have something tangible to show voters in the 2010 election campaigns.
Even so, Paul Krugman is optimistic. Krugman found poll numbers that say Massachusetts’s health care reform is enormously popular in Massachusetts. This is a good sign for national reform, he says. Conservatives want health care to fail and hope for a voter backlash against it, but the Massachusetts experience says that is unlikely.

The Atlantic Politics Channel |  Taking a closer look at Massachusetts, in the National Journal, Marilyn Weber Serafini wrote an indispensable review of the state’s reform efforts from 2006. Like the bills moving through Congress, that law included both an individual mandate and new insurance regulations. Unlike the Democrats’ bill, Massachusetts tried to put off cost control so that people would see the benefits of reform before having to pay the bill. Bay state public reaction is mixed: 70 percent of physicians support the bill, but only 26 percent of the public considers it a “success.”
I was just discussing [the health care] issue with colleagues Megan McArdle and Dan Indiviglio on Friday. Dan expects voters to focus on the short-term costs of health care (eg. the excise tax, the mandate, the Medicare cuts) over the benefits in 2010. Megan is especially pessimistic about the excise tax hitting cushy union benefits and creating a migraine for lawmakers. Who’s right is a question we’re still months, or years, away from knowing. But if we’re looking to Massachusetts for lessons, everybody can agree that the first one is: Let them eat carrots.

Ezra Klein |  As Paul Krugman notes, the Massachusetts reforms are working pretty well. Not perfectly, and it’s a good thing indeed that the plans Congress is considering go quite a bit further than anything attempted by Massachusetts, but the Bay State has shown that the basic combination of a mandate, subsidies and an exchange can work to radically increase coverage.
Krugman also mentions that a recent poll found that 75 percent of the state’s physicians supported the reforms and wanted to see them preserved. This reminds me of a conversation I recently had with a Boston-based doctor. I asked how she liked the reforms, and she shook her head. They just don’t work that well, she sighed. I figured she’d go on to criticize the payment rates or the flood of new patients or the bureaucrats telling her what to do. Instead, she explained that she came over from England, and compared to the British health-care system, our efforts to care for everyone and create a coherent system of care where really quite crude.

News…

Paradise Lost: Is California finished?  |  The New Republic

Last month, California’s unemployment rate hit 12.2 percent, a 70-year high. Its bond rating is the lowest of the 50 states. Earlier, the state government had to issue IOUs. Its political system–once the envy of other states–has become dysfunctional. And its educational system, which former University of California president Clark Kerr described as “bait to be dangled in front of industry,” is riven by conflict and reeling from budget cuts. Is this déjà vu all over again, or has the California dream finally become a nightmare? There are troubling signs.

Impacts of global climate change plotted on world map  |  TreeHugger

To the uninitiated, climate change can seem like a vague, apocalyptic problem that’s either too far away to bother with, or too chaotic and confusing to attempt to understand. Rising sea levels, melting glaciers, more droughts, more rainfall, more storms, and so on. And yes, global warming will cause each of these–but it might be useful for people to know what it’s going to do to them. Enter the world climate impact map.

More Spending on Afghan War Could Hurt the Dollar  |  Truthout

Could an expanded war in Afghanistan be the costly straw that breaks the dollar’s back, exacerbating already high concerns around the world over its value and damaging its central role in global commerce?
The Afghan war is presently budgeted for $65 billion in fiscal 2010, more than the Iraq war. Extra soldiers would add to its cost and to a federal budget deficit now projected at a record $1.58 trillion in the fiscal year, swelled by economic stimulus spending against a major recession.

Swine Flu Vaccine Shortage: Why?  |  NPR

Millions of Americans already have been infected with swine flu. Forty-six states have widespread flu, and the president has declared a national emergency.
But only recently have U.S. health officials discovered why manufacturers can’t deliver as much swine flue vaccine as expected.