Welcome

Welcome to Health Care Policy 101. My name is Emily is I will be your blogger, from now until ... I lose interest, most likely. A little bit about myself: I've been writing for a couple of different health policy publications for about 7 months now and the experience has taught me some things:

1. Health care is incredibly, and I mean incredibly, complicated. Managing a hospital is complicated, health care law is complicated (one exec at the company I work for actually used the phrase, "I feel sorry for anyone who entered health care law"), and crafting health care legislation that can actually pass through one or both of the chambers -- not to mention the White House -- is really complicated.
2. Health care is so important right now. Which could be because there's a presidential campaign going on ... but more likely it's because the whole employer-based health insurance system is falling apart. Some 46.6 million U.S. residents were uninsured in 2005, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and companies are increasingly having difficulty dealing with the rising costs. Chrysler has said repeatedly that the costs associated with health care for workers adds $1,000 per car as compared to competitors (see recent coverage by the AP/Houston Chronicle). You know when you have businesses like Wal-Mart teaming up with the SEIU and corporate giants like Safeway calling for health care reform something is very, very wrong.
3. It's going to be a long time before anything gets done. It just is. Any candidate who claims they can get universal coverage by 2012 is being incredibly optimistic. Democratic candidates, you know who you are.

So with those very basic assumptions, I begin to blog. Looking forward to the months ahead, and to hearing your thoughts.