The New Health Dialogue

I took to the pages of the Sacramento Bee today to evaluate what the different health reform scenarios would mean:

What if federal health care reform stalls? One option is to pursue an "incremental" approach, passing only those things that command broad agreement. Though appealing, this approach does not stand up to scrutiny. First, the elements of the current bill continue to poll as the most popular even as the process has led the public to be dissatisfied with the overall effort. Further, we've been pursuing an incremental strategy since the days of Teddy Roosevelt. If we keep doing what we've done, we're going to keep getting what we've got.

Also got the chance to make a similar point on Fox News Radio on Wednesday as one of their commentators after Obama's speech.  One of the main points that I made there was that although one might prefer a lot of things in the abstract -- the original New America proposal for reform was similar to the Wyden-Bennett bill -- we need to evaluate the bill that is actually on the table.