How Rhetoric Gets in the Way of Reason

There's been a lot of commentary on Senator Ron Johnson's criticism of the Affordable Care Act, too much of it needlessly vituperous. Uwe Reinhardt, probably the most thoughtful writer on health care policy, provides a more reasoned response. Both Johnson and his critics miss the most important points within the health care debate. Simply put the current approach to health care in the US has left too many people uninsured and has provided no limits of the escalating cost of our health care. Our health care costs more than it ought to and is less effective than health care elsewhere. There are many different models in other industrialized countries that achieve results superior to ours. Those of us with access to good care at a "reasonable" cost sometimes seem to forget that the care Senator Johnson's daughter received is not available to a large fraction of Americans, especially children. The Affordable Care Act is aimed at helping children who, unlike Senator Johnson's daughter, don't have access to life saving procedures. The response of Republicans to the Affordable Care Act is especially troubling, given that it is consistent with a host of past Republican proposals, including most recently, the health care legislation in Massachusetts. Are Republicans willing to sacrifice the health of American children for partisan political gain?