Where’s The Outrage Over Our Failed Health Care System?

For the next few months we’ll be bombarded by messages from the Obama administration urging people, especially young, healthy people, to sign up for insurance provided under the Affordable Care Act. Without them, premiums for that insurance will soon climb to unaffordable levels.

We’ll also hear plenty of noise from the ACA’s opponents. It will be hard to get any other health policy messages across during the upcoming PR blitz.

But there are some other important and noteworthy things going on in the policy world. Perhaps the most important is the growing interest in the origins of the high costs of medical care in the U.S., now about double that of other wealthy countries.

That interest has been fueled by the ACA. By requiring many Americans to buy private health insurance, the federal government is now obliged to see to it that insurance remains affordable. Whether they are actually able to do so remains to be seen.