Health Care Reform Pt. 3

A recent study by John Lott Jr. at the University of Maryland indicates what some Democrats may be trying to hide.

From the abstract:

"The debate over government-provided insurance for Americans frequently makes two assumptions: that the uninsured are unsatisfied with the health care they receive and that government health insurance would improve the quality of care for the uninsured.

This paper finds that the vast majority of uninsured Americans are satisfied with their health care. Indeed, only 2.3 percent of Americans are both uninsured and very dissatisfied with the quality of the medical care that they receive. The paper finds that Canadians are much closer to uninsured Americans than to insured Americans in their satisfaction with their health care.

There is also little difference in the level of Americans' satisfaction with their health care based upon race, marital status, educational attainment, income, or political views. There is some difference in satisfaction based on age and between the most extreme levels of educational attainment."

Now, Dr. Lott is a conservative, and we must take his findings with the appropriate grain of objectivity salt, but his findings are at least worth exploring, are they not?

A big question: Should we align our health care system to look like the one present in Canada?

Dr. Lott would say, "No." I believe that many Democrats would say, "Yes." Which brings me to my next point: transparency.

Why don't we all know precisely what Congress is doing? Instead of hiding in committee rooms, coming up with plans that no Americans even know about at this time, perhaps the Congress (who, according to their campaign strategies of 2006 and 2008, are committed to transparency) should share MORE of what's going on.

After watching Sunday news shows, and hearing Democratic leaders in the Senate and White House talk about health care, I've come to conclusion that they are dancing around the issue, perhaps masking their true intentions.

Frankly, my biggest fear is that Congress will push through a hastily thought out bill that has a lack of common sense and ridiculously wasteful spending. As I said in a previous post, health care reform can not and should not be achieved in a matter of weeks.