Health Care Conundrum

QUESTION:

What is the surest way to make a healthy person sick? 

ANSWER:

Ask them about their health care.

Yes folks, health care is back the news… and this time it isn’t about swine flu! Er… we mean H1N1 virus…)

Just this week,  President Obama met with business leaders in health care to talk about trimming their mega-huge budgets.

The health care community is acknowledging their mega-huge problem  and, as the Washington Post says, are:

Volunteering to “do our part” to tackle runaway health costs, leading groups in the health-care industry have offered to squeeze $2 trillion in savings from projected increases over the next decade, White House officials said yesterday.

So we’re all on the same playing field, right? Congressman Patrick Kennedy from Rhode Island posted on the Huffington Post, that:

The recent outbreak of the swine flu serves as a stark reminder about the need for comprehensive health care reform in this country. Every citizen in this country should have access to affordable, high quality health care.

Affordable, high quality health care!  Who can argue with that?!?  How do we get it!?!

That’s where the arguing starts… 

Janet Adamy at the Wall Street Journal gives her thoughts here on one option, taxing health care to sustain health care:

The idea of taxing employee health-care benefits to raise money for an overhaul of the health system is gaining strength in Congress, although it drew criticism from Barack Obama when he was campaigning for president.

The NYTimes released their editorial on the situation. They say there is a middle of the road plan, and that’s letting the government toss its hat into the health care plan system:

It should be possible to design a system in which public and private plans could compete without destroying the private coverage that most Americans have and for the most part want to keep. 

One thing is for sure. What we’ve got now just isn’t going to cut it in the long run.

Former Clinton budget adviser Matt Miller, referring to the talks between President Obama and health care businesses, weighs in over at the Daily Beast:

Even if this goal were achieved over the next decade, America’s health-care system would still be radically inefficient compared other advanced nations.

So, what is the path ahead for health care? The path will be about as straightforward as the Burma Road (pictured below for all you history enthusiasts).

But where will it lead?  Have any ideas?