Politics and Health Insurance

Politics and health care have a very close yet adversarial relationship. Health care practitioners accuse politicians of making decisions that compromise their ability to provide appropriate care without giving them protection the protection they feel they need to be safe from frivolous malpractice lawsuits. Politicians in turn criticize the health care system for skyrocketing medical costs. They claim this is making health care in the U.S. an elitist system, one which provides less affordability and accessibility to the people who need it most. Meanwhile, drug companies and drug lobbyists pressure both politicians and health care professionals in their home arenas in order to gain greater market shares.
With every political election, health issues such as rising drug costs, long-term care for aging baby-boomers, Medicare reform, and the call for national health care coverage continue to receive greater press coverage. As public concern and political debate intensifies, politicians are under growing pressure to find solutions to these issues. In the future, we can expect the relationship between politics and health care to become more integrated. Ironically, at a time when the government is being increasingly called upon to reform and manage the health care system, there are fewer doctors serving in Congress than at any other time in our nation's history.