Opinion: In today’s pages: Healthcare and a California constitutional convention
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The Times editorial board focuses on the failing healthcare system in the United States, urging Congress and all parties involved to start the reform process now before it’s too late. Despite sharp disagreements over some of the proposed fixes, the board notes the broad consensus about three main problem areas: rising costs, incomplete coverage and questionable quality:
The cost, quality and coverage problems are intertwined. Healthcare providers pass along the expense of caring for the uninsured and underinsured, raising costs for those who have insurance. Insurers respond by raising prices, which leads more employers and individuals to drop coverage. The low reimbursement rates prompt physicians to move into more lucrative careers as specialists, reducing the supply of the primary-care doctors who are vital to timely, high-quality care. And the perverse financial incentives in the system deter doctors and hospitals from aligning their interests with those of their patients. After all, the healthcare industry profits more from treating ailments than from preventing them....
The U.S. healthcare system isn’t a failure. It’s extraordinarily good at some things, such as developing new treatments. But its inefficiencies and gaps have created flaws so deep, the system cannot be sustained for long. Not enough people are receiving the care they need when they need it, and those who are pay too much for it. The problems are getting bigger and more complex. The longer we wait to solve them, the more intractable they will become.
On the Op-Ed side of the fold, Steven Hill proposes several ways that California can approach a constitutional convention that will potentially remake the state into California, Version 2.0. The problem, he writes, is how to choose delegates. He concludes that random selection -- as done in Canada, among other countries -- may be the best and fairest option. Gregory Rodriguez discusses the danger of urban downsizing and the Obama administration’s consideration of a plan to shrink deteriorating cities by bulldozing neighborhoods:
The plan makes sense on some level, but it’s disturbing on another. Anyone who’s driven by miles of empty lots in Detroit knows that urban demolition does more than destroy blight. It also erases history and what a city was. Traces of the past have always been jumping-off places for the next chapter (think rehabbed Victorians or sleek post-industrial lofts). And, of course, the back-to-nature plan -- which could be used in cities such as Memphis, Baltimore, Philadelphia and others -- is fundamentally an admission and may be an assurance that these cities will never rise again.
And Susan R. Barry reflects on the beauty of a 3-D world as well as the potential benefits of 3-D movies in spotting visual defects in children.