WANTED: Affordable & Excellent

I don’t have the solution for how all Americans can have both affordable health insurance and access to excellent health care. It wasn’t all that long ago that Hillary Rodham Clinton got bogged down in trying to fix it during her husband’s administration. But something must be done. Chuck and I are fortunate in that we have both affordable monthly premiums and access to good health care (my recent trip to visit my new doctor notwithstanding!) But we are starting to feel as if we are the exception. Too many people we know and care about are talking about insurance access and coverage problems. They’re also talking about monthly premiums that are overwhelming to any budget and co-pays or annual deductibles that turn ordinary insurance into essentially catastrophic coverage. The costs that employers pay to provide their employees with access to insurance continue to rise and squeeze small business owners as well.

Massachusetts and California are each taking statewide steps to improve coverage and access. But it’s too soon to tell how either plan is going to work. Now Democratic Presidential Candidate John Edwards is tackling the problem. I don’t know if he has all the answers either. But I am glad that he’s speaking up and putting it on the national agenda. Perhaps with the current sea change in Congress and what I hope will be a dramatic change in Presidential administrations starting in January of 2009, things will change for the better.