Healthcare Reform a Big Flop? Really?

In a recent commentary titled Health Care – A Big Flop, Julia Schwartz discusses healthcare reform and how overall the recent legislation is a big flop. While she has a lot of good points, I think her arguments could all benefit from adding information and evidence from outside sources. Yes this is supposed to be an original commentary, but, without any research, credibility seems lost. It might be beneficial to quote Congressmen that agree with her. This clearly shows throughout the commentary specifically in reasoning behind governors filing suit against requiring everyone obtain insurance or pay a penalty and expansion of Medicaid programs. By just stating these facts, there is no compelling reason to believe that there are problems with these parts of the law or that the Governors have valid reason to file suit.

As the commentary continues, she states that, “even though this health care reform has had some early successes, it does not mean that it will continue to be successful and that people will change their minds and decide all of a sudden that it holds good inside of it,” and then goes further to try and discuss why people won’t see good inside the law. The problem in this though is that each piece of evidence hasn’t happened and is just a projection of what might happen. Schwartz specifically notes the good in tax cut eligibility for small businesses provided by the law, but then refutes it by saying that this, “does not mean that any will actually receive it and if they do it will be a small amount,” without stating reason to believe nothing will happen. Also, as she states many times that there are early successes she refutes that by saying, “the early skeptics of this bill is holding true as the months pass on.”

Throughout the entirety of her commentary, Schwartz seems to flip flop between agreeing with "some successes" of the health care law and saying that it is a flop overall. How can a law that has only had successes so far be, in its entirety, a big flop? While I agree with her on some of her points, like the law’s continuous success in the first couple of months, I think it's important to note that health care reform is better than no reform at all because that way we can progress toward something better than existed before. If we make mistakes, we can learn from them and improve on the old. Showing how Obama might make mistakes dealing with a lot of issues, but the important thing is that we are progressing toward something different than the inefficient and sloppy system that existed.