Our view: Reform rightly remains top priority

Posted: Sunday, November 22, 2009 12:15 am

U.S. Rep. Ron Kind says he's confident that health care reform will get done - and that it will include the kind of reforms to Medicare reimbursement that will lead to better care, lower costs and fair treatment of Midwest providers.

Let's hope he's right.

Kind told the Tribune editorial board on Friday that he has not seen the temperature of the nation quite this high. Threats against Social Security Administration employees. Partisans on either side of the health care issue shouting down their opponents. The 24/7 news cycle contributing to a firestorm of heated argument but little illumination.

But Kind is nonetheless optimistic.

Overhauling the U.S. health care system is tough. And we continue to applaud the efforts of Kind, U.S. Rep. Tim Walz and U.S. Sens. Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl to tackle the unsustainable fiscal trajectory of Medicare - a two-edged sword of brutal geographic disparities in its reimbursement system and the reliance on a fee-for-service care that rewards quantity over quality. Those issues are reason enough to continue the drive to reform our current system.

The House bill that Kind voted for includes a provision for the Institute of Medicine to create reforms that would address both geographic unfairness in Medicare reimbursement and reform of the fee-for-service model.

Kind said that he's confident that reforming Medicare; creating a national insurance exchange to help small businesses and individuals buy insurance coverage; and - ideally - creating public option to compete with private insurers in markets dominated by a single provider will lay the foundation for a sustainable system.

While the House bill Kind supported includes such a public option, the Senate is unlikely to approve such a plan. But the

La Crosse Democrat said the lack of a public option wouldn't be a deal-breaker for him.

He's taking the right approach.

And the bitter opponents of reform?

They continue to ignore a reality they used to acknowledge, crying out for relief. For years, addressing out-of-control increases in health care costs was a top priority of businesses small and large. Where, we ask, are those proponents for systemic change today?

And we continue to ask opponents of substantial change to have the intellectual honesty to at least call for a legitimate overhaul of the half of American medicine that's already socialized: Medicare. Unless its serious shortcomings are fixed, the private system health insurers some are so desperately trying to "save" will certainly be doomed - by the cost-shifting involved in caring for that portion of our population that is already using a "public option."

Kind said the country's full economic recovery is tied inextricably to three huge initiatives President Barack Obama and the Democrats will continue to focus on as the year winds down: health care, energy policy and reform of the country's financial system.

Success on that first issue will be a good start.