New "Health Care Reading" Feature

By all accounts, health care reform is ramping up across the country.

Here in Wisconsin, there are a number of comprehensive reform measures before the state legislature. While the governor and others do not expect comprehensive reform to be enacted in the next couple of years, and are opting instead for smaller reforms first, at the very least the templates exist and there’s no denying reform is in the air.

The same is true on the national level, which most experts have claimed is far too vast to experience any fundamental reform in the coming years. In spite of these claims, however, a number of eye-opening coalitions are popping up – coalitions that were unthinkable the last time comprehensive health care reform was discussed at the national level a little over a decade ago.

For instance, the LA Times is reporting this morning that a coalition of business and labor groups are set to announce a joint plan for comprehensive reform later today, and on Thursday another improbable coalition involving the insurance industry, health care providers, and lefty activist groups will do the same.

To understand the significance of these coalitions only requires a glimpse at how diametrically opposed these very groups were back in the mid-1990s on the issue of health care reform.

To help bring the mindset change home, here’s Karen Ignagni of the health insurance industry lobby group, AHIP: “The health insurance problem has been with us for decades. With all these different efforts, you are seeing a consensus emerge that the time for action is now.”

Yes, that’s really a representative of the insurance lobby talking there.

Granted, calls for universal care from the insurance industry are as much an attempt to save their own hides as anything (if reform comes in the form of single payer, albeit a highly unlikely scenario, much or all of the insurance industry will find itself essentially unemployed).

But the fact that insurance industry is teaming with health care reform advocacy groups gives the appearance that they’re actually serious about not just saving themselves with half-hearted proposals – such as the one AHIP churned out in November – but also truly solving “the health insurance problem.”

In terms of this blog, I often find myself coming across articles and studies on the health care issue that are worthy of mention, but, for whatever reason, the context (or, perhaps, time) isn’t there to warrant a full post on them. Since I don’t want to put out posts that merely cite links, I usually just tuck these articles away until there’s a context where they can be used.

However, as the number of these articles has grown, it’s become increasingly difficult to track and remember them when the context does arise. Plus, since these articles contribute to much of my own thinking on the topic of health care reform, I think they’re important to get out there.

So to solve the issue of not wanting to put mass amounts of citations directly in posts, I’ve decided to create a “Health Care Reading List” in the right-hand column of the blog where the best of these articles and studies can be listed. I plan to update this list as regularly as possible.

If you’re so inclined, check it out. I should have it up shortly.

UPDATE: It's up. You may need to refresh your browser to see it.