via AlterNet's PEEK:
Why Conservatives Are Radical on Health Care
Posted by Barbara O'Brien at 1:00 PM on March 8, 2009.
No where on our planet is 21st-century medical care being delivered by a "consumer-driven" or "market-based" health care system.The Obama Administration wants to fix the nation’s increasingly dysfunctional health care “system.” Wonks and politicians will have countless policy details to argue about. But all the details are boiling down to a contest between two basic approaches to delivering health care to Americans.
One approach is relatively incremental and might even be called "conservative." The other approach, however, would radically alter the way most Americans get their health care. It is completely untried and based on ideas that sound good on paper, but have no track record of working in the real world.
And here’s the catch — in the nation’s mass media, the genuinely conservative approach is being called “radical,” even “socialistic.” The genuinely radical and untested approach is being offered by “conservatives.”
President Obama’s Conservative Health Care ProposalMany of the details of President Barack Obama’s health care initiatives have yet to be worked out. But the outline of his approach is extremely conservative compared to the way nearly all other industrialized democracies pay for health care. ........(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/130677/why_conservatives_are_radical_on_health_care/