Obamacare: Clearing Away The Fog

Jacob S. Hacker

June 04, 2007

Jacob S. Hacker is a Yale University political science professor and a fellow at the New America Foundation . He is the author of The Great Risk Shift: The Assault on American Jobs, Families, Health Care, and Retirement—And How You Can Fight Back , as well as the “Health Care for America” proposal recently released as part of the Economic Policy Institute’s Agenda for Shared Prosperity.

If Iraq had the starring role in Sunday night’s Democratic debate, health care was the key supporting actor. Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama, former Sen. John Edwards, Gov. Bill Richardson, and Rep. Dennis Kucinich all spoke with passion about the need to reform a health insurance framework that, in Edwards’s well-chosen words, “is completely dysfunctional.”

Unfortunately, while we have growing clarity of purpose in Democratic discussions, we have not always had clarity of vision. Few candidates have specified how they would achieve affordable quality health care for all. (Sen. Clinton is among those whose health plan remains TBA.) And last week, when Obama released his long-awaited health plan, most of the health care commentariat appeared not relieved, but completely flummoxed about what he was up to.