•July 26, 2017•

By Trudy Lieberman,
Rural Health News Service

One thing I haven’t heard much in this latest healthcare debate is that the U.S. has the best health system in the world. That’s different from the last two times around.

When the nation debated the Clinton health plan in 1994 and the Affordable Care Act in 2009-2010, a huge talking point for politicians and special business interests opposed to reform was, “The American system is so good, why change it?”

It’s different this year. Maybe that’s because the public realizes America doesn’t have the best, and their own interactions with what American healthcare has become tell them a different story. The old talking point doesn’t compute any more.

Of course, we’ve all had some good experiences. And we generally continue to believe that the money we spend on super expensive technology and medicines equates to good care even though evidence shows those costly interventions may not deliver as advertised and actually may be harmful.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.