The healthcare debate

I've been spending a lot of time in bookshops around Washington DC - and have brought back a few to keep me busy over the coming months. A few days ago I can across one which I hadn't seen before. It is Tom Daschle's "Getting it Done: How Obama and Congress Finally Broke the Stalemate to Make Way for Health Care Reform". Now there are more than enough books on the healthcare debate - and as a UK citizen the ins and outs of what is and isn't covered - has limited attraction. [I benefit from the British NHS, a system which is available to UK citizens on the basis of need - and has well served my family since it was set up over 60 years ago - and none of us have had worry about whether a job loss would mean loss of cover - and we've never had to deal with an insurance company telling us that we've reached the limit of our coverage. ]

But Tom Daschle's book attracted me - because it describes the process by which the legislation made its way through Congress. I will be reading the book in full in the future - but had the opportunity to skim read it whilst taking coffee at the Borders store in the Pentagon Center last week. There's lots there for someone who is interested in how Congress works in practice - and for the historian who seeks to follow the way Congress have evolved since the early 1970s (that would be me!)

Well worth a read.