Kate makes a good point on my health care post from yesterday:
I don't think it's necessary to ask if Democrats should hasten the collapse of the status quo -- Republicans are doing it for us! I've argued this many times, but Consumer Directed Health Care, HSAs, High deductible health plans, all the "market oriented" fixes experts currently tout are going to be nothing but another dip in the graph (see below) in five years, followed by the inevitable rise in spending. Everything we've tried before has failed -- CDHC changes aren't nearly as intense as managed care. Thinking their impact will be greater is just silly. The system is working itself to implosion already.
I guess the question, better clarified, is whether or not Democrats should be going to war to end this erosion. But that may be a false look anyway. My opinion, since I've now collected everyone else's, is that progressives lack any sort message on clear health care. We've taken the brave stance of "for it," but that's basically all we've got. Folks have to settle on some sort of plan (Medicare-for-all being the savviest candidate) and be ready to push it and only it each time this conversation emerges. Instead, liberals are caught in this scattershot approach to health care issues where we simultaneously argue against changing anything in the system while admitting, but not detailing, our belief that we need to change everything. Not only do we lack message clarity, but we frequently end up preserving bad elements of a dying system -- there's no long-game to change the whole structure.
