by Harold Pollack “Health reform” was the key domestic policy issue of the Democratic primaries. It may yet become a central issue of the fall campaign. Everyone favors it, partly because we are all talking about different things. I could shingle my roof with the various proposals, webcast invitations, and advocacy group briefs that reach my inbox every day. As I open the attachments, it becomes clear that health reform includes at least seven really important things: 1. Protecting everyone from the financial consequences of illness and medical care itself. 2. Expanding social provision in America. 3. Using healthcare to transfer in-kind resources down the income scale. 4. Controlling public and private health expenditures. 5. Improving care quality and cost-effectiveness. Less often, someone sends an email about two other, readily neglected subjects intimately affected by health reform: 6. Providing stable financing for state and local governments now reeling under Medicaid and safety-net expenditures. 7. Improving population health.
