DAVID LAZARUS - Happy New You! Our columnists share resolutions, aspirations and admonitions for a rewarding 2008. - Here's to your health, safety, privacy and sanity
New Year's resolutions are typically as reliable as big companies' assurances that customer service is their No. 1 priority. But that doesn't stop people from making them.
Here are mine:
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I will not give up hope for healthcare reform.
Political leaders at the state and national levels vowed 12 months ago that 2007 would be the year we'd finally do something about the shameful statistic of 47 million Americans lacking health insurance.
So here we are, with the clock ticking down the year's final minutes, and what have we accomplished? A lot of talk, to be sure, but not much more.
In California, where as many as 7 million people have no health coverage, our Republican governor and Democratic legislative leaders have struggled mightily to come up with some sort of healthcare fix. We're still waiting.
This month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) came to terms on a plan that would cover many, but not all, of the state's uninsured. It would also require insurance companies to provide policies to everyone, including people with preexisting medical conditions (such as recently diagnosed diabetics like me).
It would not, however, do much, if anything, to contain runaway healthcare costs.
The bill still needs Senate approval. The plan would then go before voters, who would be asked to approve taxing themselves to cover the estimated $14-billion price tag. Meanwhile, the state is projected to run a similarly huge $14-billion budget deficit next year.
Cooking up a healthcare reform plan without first securing the money to pay for it isn't exactly a profile in political courage. Our leaders might just as well have promised every child a pony, so long as taxpayers foot the bill. Will anyone be surprised when this whole thing collapses at the ballot box in November?
At the national level, we have Republican presidential candidates Rudolph W. Giuliani, John McCain and Fred Thompson -- each a cancer survivor -- heartlessly espousing plans that don't guarantee coverage to people with similarly serious illnesses.
Meantime, Democrats Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards are duking it out for the universal-coverage high ground but have come up short on details about how they'd achieve this goal, how they'd pay for it and how they'd keep the insurance industry from gouging millions of people in the process.
