NPR:
- How Obama Can Heed Clinton Health Reform Failure
As President-elect Barack Obama prepares to take office and confront the problems with the nation’s health care system, some people in Washington are feeling a sense of deja vu.
In 1993, Bill Clinton had just become president, and his party was in the majority in both the House and Senate. There were tens of millions of people without health insurance and high hopes for change.
That health reform effort crashed. The policy experts involved in that initiative say the Obama team will have to do things differently if they want to make change this time.
Podcast - CNN’s Dr. Gupta May Be Next Surgeon General
Health Affairs Blog
- Health Spending Slows, But Still Outpaces Economy Slowdown
Health care and the economy. Health spending growth overall outpaced the slowing economy and consumed a larger portion of gross domestic product in 2007, reaching 16.2 percent, up from 16 percent in 2006. Although prescription drug spending slowed significantly in 2007, reaching its lowest rate of growth in 45 years, most other health care services grew at about the same rate or faster from 2006 to 2007, the government said. Writing in today’s New York Times, Robert Pear noted: “In recessions, when the economy contracts, health spending usually continues to increase. So federal economists and statisticians said that health spending probably accounted for an even larger share of the nation’s economic output in 2008.â€
- The Surgeon General: A Partner In Health Reform
But over the past 50 years, even as these valiant efforts and life-saving programs saved countless lives and raised awareness, our health care system has fallen apart – and more recently, the Surgeon General’s voice has been muted. Now that President-elect Barack Obama has proposed Tom Daschle and Jeanne Lambrew to lead his new health reform team, it’s time for us to redefine the Surgeon General’s role as someone who can not only diagnose what’s wrong with our health care system but work with us, as a team, to fix it.