Thomas Daschle: “yesterday's New York Times Magazine contained a very insightful article written by our colleague from New York, Senator…”

“yesterday's New York Times Magazine contained a very insightful article written by our colleague from New York, Senator Clinton. This article, entitled ``Now Can We Talk About Health Care?,'' is truly a call to action. Senator Clinton could not be more right when she points out that if we were starting from scratch in designing a health care system, ``none of us, from dyed-in-the-wool liberals to rock-solid conservatives, would fashion the kind of health care system America has inherited.'' She pointedly asks why we should carry this flawed system and its problems into the future. It is a rhetorical question, of course, but the answer, unfortunately, is that we are doing just that. Last year, 43.6 million Americans were without health coverage--an increase of over 2 million from the year before. About 74,800 people in my State of South Dakota--12 percent of the population--are without health insurance. But statistics alone do not communicate the anguish felt by so many people in our country regarding an issue as personal as their health care. Senator Clinton correctly notes that things will only get worse. Her article explains that the very manner in which we finance care is ``so seriously flawed that if we fail to fix it, we face a fiscal disaster that will not only deny quality care to the uninsured and underinsured but also undermine the capacity of the system to care for even the well insured.'' This a sobering warning. It does not have to be this way.”