America's health-care crisis

[AGENDA21]

The world's biggest and most expensive health-care system is beginning to fall apart. Can George Bush mend it?

GEORGE BUSH had big ideas for his second term. He promised to fix Social Security, America's public pensions system, and revamp the tax code. Despite his best efforts, Social Security reform sank last year. Rejigging the tax code has proved so politically tricky that the White House dare not push it. With almost three years to go, Mr Bush seems less a radical reformer than a struggling lame duck.

White House officials, desperate to show that the president still has a domestic agenda, have now changed the subject—to health care. The buzz in Washington, DC, is that health-care reform will loom large when Mr Bush gives his annual state-of-the-union address on January 31st. Al Hubbard, Mr Bush's top domestic policy adviser, adds that the focus will be on ideas that control costs, boost access and improve quality.

http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5436968

[rodeodance]

1. I fear anything connecting BushCo and 'reform'

[KainNero]

2. hmmm will the 2nd term

curse take full effect any time soon? If Bush does something too radical, he may screw repubs in the future elections (while also screwing americans over) hmm...

[yy4me]

3. Sure, he'll fix health care, just like everything he touches, a mess.

He will try to make it mandatory that everyone buy their own health care insurance. Disconnect it from employers and place the whole program on the individual. Just like the prescription drug program, the Feds can set up some sort of a network that will allow us to buy insurance through the government. And just like the drug coverage program, it will be completely messed up. The good side(for businesses) will be the fact that businesses will no longer have to provide health care to its employees. I've bought individual insurance and I've paid through work. Believe me, what you get from individual policies is horrible. Its hundreds of dollars per month with huge deductibles and huge co-pays. I really don't know what the answer to the problem is but I fear any proposal put forth by this administration. I am on Social Security and have had to go back to work because of the health insurance premiums.

[Skittles]

4. that incompetent piece of shit f***s up everything he touches

EVERYTHING