Ken’s Take: Pretty well sums up my point of view … nice that coverage got expanded, but no structural change to the system … just moves money (and paper) around … and jams gov’t bureaucrats in the middle of a very personal process.
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Excerpted from the National Review …
Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen, a Democrat who was once on the Obama administration’s short list for the job of Health and Human Services secretary, has called the Affordable Care Act “a stunning disappointment.”
“The problem isn’t that we expanded coverage,” Bredesen writes in his new book “Fresh Medicine,” referring to the millions of uninsured and under-insured people who can now either buy insurance with the help of federal vouchers and the creation of state health exchanges.
“The problem was expanding coverage is about all we did.”
It’s “about all we did,” because Bredesen thinks that expanded entitlement saddles an already burdened federal government drowning in red ink with additional – and expensive – obligations.
“Government loves complexity, rules and red tape, but we may have outdone ourselves this time,” Bredesen writes.
“Reform offered a chance to clean up the baroque system we have created over the years, reduce bureaucracy, lower administrative cost and give clarity and focus to a major part of where we spend our taxpayers’ money.
“Instead, we created more complexity, more regulations and the need for more bureaucracy.”
Dem Governor: Obamacare a ‘Stunning Disappointment’, October 12, 2010
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/249550/dem-governor-obamacare-stunning-disappointment-daniel-foster
The Homa Files 