Our Craptacular Health Care System (And Why We Deserve It)

Americans want more health care for less money, and when they don't get it, they indict drug companies, insurers, trial lawyers and bureaucrats. Although these familiar scapegoats may not be blameless, the real problem is us. We demand the impossible. The changes we truly need are political. We need to reconnect people with the public consequences of their private acts. We should curb the subsidization of private insurance. Medicare recipients, especially wealthier ones, should pay more of their bills. But these changes won't happen because people don't want to see the costs. We don't have the health care system we need, but we do have the one we deserve.

That's the Wash Post's Robert Samuelson on our craptacular health care system. His whole col, which lays out the inconsistencies in our various demands, is well worth reading. Take it twice and then call a doctor on the morning of the State of the Union Address, in which President Bush is expected to yap about an annoying new set of tax breaks for health care, thus making the system even less intelligible and transparent.