Important week for Health Care Reform

The health care reform debate has narrowed down to the issue of how to introduce competition in the health insurance market. The compromise position is the formation of regional health insurance cooperatives. While the implementation of these is still unclear, this would provide the vehicle for the new business model for health insurance. The public option is too big of a step to take in order to just increase the level of competition because it creates a shift in power from state and local financing of health care to the federal government, unless this can be limited in some way. In the long term roadmap, the preservation of private enterprise in the delivery of health care depends on keeping a balance that is different than the socialized single payer financing model.