For original Blog entry, see:
http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/26/could-a-republican-health-care-reform-ever-happen/
ObamaCare, with all its obvious and sometimes severe faults, is nonetheless a vitally important milestone for the US: it begins to close the gaping abyss between the US and the rest of the modern, civilized world in acknowledging the need, both moral and social, for universal healthcare.
We currently have the highest per capita cost for worst return, according to OECD
The faults are multi-faceted - and we are experiencing them (almost) first-hand through helping our single-mother-of-two (one special needs) daughter try to find her way through the complicated, and possibly expensive, mess.
For us the faults are also obvious from having lived and worked in Europe over the years and experienced their health care systems. Most recently a one year stay in Germany during which we were insured under the German "public" option, made it obvious how much better German health care is. It is not cheap - about the same monthly cost as our Medicare plus Supplement here in the US - but it is so much less complicated and unbureaucratic (can you believe it, Germany less bureaucratic than the US!!). None of the scare propaganda about long wait times, denied services and inferior care are true - quite the opposite.
If the US were not so enamored with its own "exceptionalism", it could distribute all existing universal health care systems around the world on a poster, and then have Congress, blindfolded, play Pin the Tail on the Donkey - and get a superior system. Instead we have Ted Cruz.
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