We have met the enemy and it is us

The Massachusetts universal coverage plan and the next-stage efforts at health care cost containment get somewhat cynical, yet sobering, coverage at CommonWealth magazine.  The article in the current issue is titled Cost Unconscious.  MassINC, which publishes the magazine says:

The Summer 2007 issue of CommonWealth magazine examines the factors underlying the ever increasing costs of health care. Though the state is drawing national headlines for its strides in expanding coverage to nearly all residents, “I don’t see a parallel sense of urgency in figuring out what we’re going to do about what, to me, is pretty close to a cost-control emergency,” says John McDonough of the advocacy group Health Care for All.  Other healthcare leaders and experts lend their insights and perspectives to the question.

John also blogged on this issue today at WBUR’s CommonHealth.  (He gets credit for the Pogo quote, too.)  As usual, he has some concrete suggestions, and Health Care For All’s legislative package includes some proposed fixes.

This is a longstanding, intractable problem, and seems unlikely to succumb to a comprehensive fix on the heels of Chapter 58.

— David Harlow