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The Health Care Debate: Bending the Curve from the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at the Brookings Institute
By Rabbi Irwin Kula

The health care debate has become polarized between right and left, conservatives and liberals, and Democrats and Republicans in ways that have not only undermined substantive conversation on one of the most important personal and public issues — our own health and the health of our families and fellow citizens, but has dangerously pitted people against each other. When "news" people on the right call the President of the United States a Nazi and "news" people on the left call vociferous opponents storm troopers something is deeply wrong in our public culture.

Health care is clearly not simply another commodity like any other product in the marketplace. Among the many reasons for the heat around this debate, beyond the great deal of money and power at stake, is that whatever side of the debate we are on health is both a deeply personal and a moral issue. Every single religious and wisdom tradition on the planet speaks about the health of our bodies (and minds) as a moral and spiritual good, and so not surprisingly the arguments about health care — both on a conscious and unconscious level — tap into very primal stuff.

Because of Clal’s commitment to pluralism and to genuine conversation across borders in which people listen to each other and try to grasp the partial truths of the side with which they disagree, we have been called upon over the past few weeks in a variety of media to comment on the deep divisions regarding health care reform. In addition, we are always on the lookout for those responsible institutions that offer thinking that transcends simple ideological divides and provides new substantive contributions to important political and cultural debates.

The Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at Brookings has just released a paper called Bending the Curve which is an example of just the sort of thinking we need. Whether one agrees with every detail, or not, the paper is a result of serious conversation across significant divides resulting in a remarkable consensus that cannot be characterized as either right or left. This paper actually keeps in focus on the product of health care reform which we all care about and which has too often been lost in this debate: better health care so that we are actually healthier people.

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