The Health-Care Debate

The topic for the last few week across the country has been whether we can get a significant health care reform bill passed. Since there are so many stakeholders involved including physician groups, insurance companies, pharmaceuticals and medical device companies, patients, politicians and of course lobbyists, any significant reform which will address the needs of all these stakeholders will be a tall order.

Every stakeholder has an interest to protect, and nobody is willing to coincide, as coinciding would mean significant loss in revenues and profits for them. In addition health care reform has to address a whole host of issues including, providing some sort of coverage for the 47 million uninsured, improving efficiency of care and slowing the growth of health care costs. All of this without adding to the burgeoning federal deficit.

So will there be any significant reform this year, only time will tell. But in the meanwhile, these two websites provide a basic understanding of what is at stake.

The first website is the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center, and the second website is Health Beat a blog dedicated specifically to health care.