2012 — A Watershed Election for Health Care (New Eng Jour Med)

[pinto]

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1111239?query=TOC

2012 — A Watershed Election for Health Care

David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P.
December 1, 2011

The 2012 election will be the most important in the history of our health care system because it will determine whether the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is implemented or repealed. The consequences for Americans and their health care will be huge.

Three possible federal electoral outcomes seem most likely. All assume that the Republicans will retain control of the House of Representatives, though perhaps with a diminished majority. Under the first scenario, the status quo continues with President Barack Obama in the White House and Democrats controlling the Senate; in the second, Obama is reelected but the Senate goes Republican; in the third, the Republicans recapture the White House and control both houses of Congress.

Electoral math makes the first of these possibilities a long shot. The Democrats have a three-vote majority in the Senate, but 23 Democratic seats will be contested in 2012, as compared with only 10 Republican seats. In a time of fierce anti-incumbency, it's much harder to defend 23 seats than 10. The Democrats also have notable vulnerabilities. For example, Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) is retiring in a solidly Republican state. Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) is running in a state that elected a Republican governor and senator in 2010. The most vulnerable Republican senator, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, continues to poll well and will face an inexperienced Democratic challenger.

(snip - author comments on all three possibilities and their relationships to health care in the country)

Speculative as this analysis may be, it highlights the extraordinary health care stakes riding on the 2012 election. We will live with its health care consequences for decades to come.

NEJM.org Copyright © 2011 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1111239?query=TOC

[Armin-A]

1. oh the problems that would be alleviated with universal healthcare

[MedicalAdmin]

2. Universal health care, or care of any significant type,

Will never come to be in america because no one in the world hates americans as much as other Americans.

We loath each other. To death.

This country is experiencing it's final shudders of life. Which is a shame.