The New York Times focuses on Sen. Blanche Lincoln, a middle-of-the-roader in everybody’s sights on every major issue but including health care. She’s keeping up a busy round of public appearances, if not free-for-all town hall appearances. I think she’s right. They have been nonproductive. They serve as free and misleading advertising for the minority that thinks the U.S. health care system is just fine as it is, with its gargantuan profits for the medical industrial complex, millions uninsured, millions more in bankruptcy from unpaid medical bills.
Brummett’s column today on the craziness afoot at town hall meetings is only support for Lincoln’s tactic. Too late, though. A useful health care reform is down the tubes with all the givebacks Obama has already made. What’s he left with?
Krugman holds out hope for a Swiss-style system to achieve nearly universal coverage. Will insurance companies really give up the ability to bar sick people from coverage or disqualify those who get too sick (expensive)? Hard to imagine.