Statement from Distinguished Senior Fellow Tom Daschle (Health Care Reform '05)

[Breeze54]

Statement from Distinguished Senior Fellow Tom Daschle

http://www.americanprogress.org/projects/healthprogress/daschle.html

Support for improving and expanding the nation’s health care system has been eroded
by myths concerning the strengths of the status quo and weaknesses of alternatives.

Efforts to reform our health care system have been undercut by myths that hide the weaknesses of our current system and overstate the challenges of reform. One myth is that the United States has the best health care system in the world. There is no doubt that some Americans have access to the best care anywhere, but not all care is excellent. Thousands of people die from medical errors every year and the odds of surviving some kinds of cancer or getting vaccines are lower here than in many other nations. Furthermore, we are falling behind in basic health measures such as life expectancy and infant mortality. When considering factors such as access, funding, and quality of care, the World Health Organization ranked the U.S. health system as only the 37th in the world.

A second myth holds that we can’t afford to do any better. But consider that over 15 percent of our economy is spent annually on health care. Per person, we spend 50 percent more than Switzerland, the nation that ranks second in per capita spending. Americans pay for half of the drug industry’s profits worldwide. And despite spending the most, we leave 46 million Americans out – those who lack health coverage.

Health care is a complex topic, but myths should not cover up a simple truth: We are wasting money by paying top dollar for mediocre results. I believe we need a new approach to health reform – an approach that results in major reform, not incremental change. We need to create new coalitions to push for reform and find new answers that work for everyone. We need to move beyond ideology and partisanship and meet our common health care system challenges with commonsense answers to provide affordable, quality health care to everyone in this great nation. This is not a weak alternative; it is the only one.

Senator Tom Daschle is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Also see:
http://www.americanprogress.org/projects/healthprogress/pdf/paying_more_getting_less.pdf">Paying More but Getting Less (PDF)
Myths and the Global Case for U.S. Health Reform
by Sen. Tom Daschle, November 2005

Updated: February 9, 2006

[Radical Activist]

1. cool

nice find.

[Breeze54]

3. Thanks!

I really wanted to look up his voting record on health care issues

but I've lost all my links on other dead computer. :(

(Actually, I'm to lazy to go to Vote Smart!) :P

:hi:

[blueclown]

2. Who are the morans who are against this choice?

Obama needed to appoint somebody to this position who knows the inner workings of Congress and which arms need to be twisted to get universal health care legislation through Congress.

[Breeze54]

4. That makes sense to me!!

:hi:

Besides, he knows about it.