As the rhetoric heats up before the election, I’d like to give you a quick reminder* of why we needed (and still need) health care reform:
That thick red line is the United States. For the record, we’re beating Mexico, Turkey, and Chile. But every other OECD country – every single other one listed there – has figured this out. I’ve been spending a lot of time recently talking about the cost and quality of the health care system, but let’s not forget access. We’re terrible. There are so many countries bunched near 100% that you can’t see them all; picking out the very few that aren’t is easy.
Say what you will about the PPACA, but it was designed primarily to get at this issue. It’s not perfect, and it won’t get us to 100% insured, but it will get us closer. Our goal at this point should be to keep pushing to get us up with everyone else, not to return us to this.
*This is from OECD data.
