This Election Is About Health Care

or so says Ezra Klein of the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/26/the-most-im...).

Excerpts:

According to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, 55 percent of registered voters say the outcome of this election will make “a great deal of difference” in their lives. That’s a 10 percent increase over the 2004 election, and more than double the percentage of voters who felt that way about the elections of 1996 or 1992. The stakes this year are higher — and most voters know it.

The most important fact of the 2012 election is that the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010; it just hasn’t been fully implemented yet. If President Obama is reelected, the bulk of it will roll out on schedule in 2014. . .If Romney wins, the Affordable Care Act will probably be fully or largely repealed, with no clear prospect of a replacement.

Which is all to say that, yes, this election matters more than most. It matters more politically because the party in power will likely see their agenda affirmed by a cyclical recovery. But it matters more to actual people because the Affordable Care Act is poised to reshape American health care in two years. A vote for Obama is a vote for the law to take effect and for 30 million Americans to get health insurance they won’t get otherwise. A vote for Romney is a vote for the law — and its spending and its taxes — to be repealed. There are few elections in which the stakes are so clear.

My comment:

Mr. Klein makes it clear in the bulk of his piece that he is an ObamaCare believer and supporter. He believes the promises made in the law that coverage will always be available for all Americans on into futurity with 'quality' coverage in a uniquely American style of health care delivery. And so, in this opinion piece, he is not so subtly encouraging your vote for Mr. Obama. As readers of this blog will know, however, I am firmly persuaded that the Affordable Care Act makes promises it can never keep. It is all political mirage and no substance. We can not continue to pretend that the wasteful business practices of American health care can be sustained indefinitely. So the Affordable Care Act has become the biggest barrier to doing the necessary health system reform. Until this abscess of American political infection is lanced and drained, we will never make progress in the efficient delivery of high quality health care to all Americans. Those who feel the way I do will vote for Romney, even if there is nothing else about his candidacy that seems appealing.

Dr. Joe Jarvis