What if we do nothing on health care?

As I’ve written here before, the Democratic health care reform bill is a mess. In an interview with Bill O’Reilly this week, Jon Stewart called it “lobbyist gruel.”

That’s a pretty apt description, I think. Instead of coming up with fresh new ideas, Democratic leaders pandered and compromised until they had a bad bill on their hands.

But not passing this stinker of a bill might be worse than doing nothing. Here’s the take-away from a Wall Street Journal piece published yesterday:

The impact of not reforming health care could be more dire than first thought. WSJ’s David Wessel says there will be more people uninsured and greater costs to employers. As for reducing the deficit? Forget about it.

Conversation among Washington wonks, corporate chieftains and health-care executives isn’t any longer about how “health reform” will work in practice. It’s about what happens if nothing happens.

The bottom line is that the status quo is no longer acceptable. Republicans may be right to oppose this bill, but they’re wrong to suggest that we can afford to do nothing.

Last month, the Watertown Daily Times asked North Country Republicans for their views on health care reform.

Will Barclay repeated the GOP talking point that America “has the best healthcare system in the world.”

Sadly, that’s no longer true and every independent health care expert in the country will agree.

The numbers of uninsured are rising daily; we have the highest infant mortality rates in the developed world; and the system that most of us use is collapsing under its own spiraling costs.

Here in the North Country, we’re likely to see nursing homes close this year, and hospitals will teeter on the brink.

It’s hard to see a clear path forward out of this mess. But the Democrats, who control Congress, can take a couple of basic steps now.

1. They should buck their own special interests by incorporating good conservative ideas, including common sense tort reform and inter-state commerce.

2. They should implement profit caps on any insurance policies which Americans are forced to buy under the new law.

3. They should create a new, independent non-profit — neither corporate nor government — that can provide basic, low-cost health insurance.

4. They should jettison for now the public option.

Many of the other elements of the Democratic bill are non-controversial and would be widely popular with the American people.

Those pieces include first steps toward cost containment and reform of the most egregious insurance company behavior.

It’s clear now that we won’t get the ‘big fix’ this year on healthcare. But with the status quo crumbling around us, we need to make some progress.

As the Journal article makes clear, the alternatives are pretty dire.