Expanding Choice Through Change

During these last days of summer, we here at Disruptive Women are reflecting on posts from when we first launched—it’s fascinating to see how far we’ve come and where we still have to go—to push—to Disrupt. After all, a woman’s work is never done. We originally published this post on September 25, 2008.
Remember Harry and Louise? Sitting at their kitchen table, the nondescript couple burst onto the national stage in a 1993 television commercial that deftly attacked Bill Clinton’s proposed health care plan and made even those of us committed to universal health insurance afraid of its consequences.
I can’t recall the lines Harry and Louise used, but 15 years later I remember the message: America is built on choice, health reform will take away that choice, and if we pursue the proposed reforms we’ll deeply regret it. Then a medical student, I was convinced (albeit naively) that we should have a healthcare system like those of our European counterparts. I was seeing many, many patients who had waited too long to visit the emergency room because they didn’t have insurance – and the accompanying detritus of medical neglect. But I was moved by Harry and Louise. I am not a person who is easily swayed, and yet their message made sense to me. It put a chink in the ideological armor of the left that persists even now.
Today, as we think about how to pursue smart and sustainable healthcare reform, we would do well to remember that Americans ...

Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - August 30, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Choice Source Type: blogs