Over the past month, our national discussion about health care has gone from bad to worse to embarrassing.  

That's because any dialogue about how to fix health care--like refocusing on making the primary care-patient doctor relationship stronger, using electronic medical records to create a seamless system of care, and testing drugs against one another to see what works best--has given away to a lot of hollering by the left and right.  

Thus, we've reached a point where the health care debate has become less about ideas and more about:

• Barack Obama versus Conservatives
• Barack Obama versus Liberals
• Sarah Palin's Facebook Page
• Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid conducting business as usual
• Betsy McCaughey twisting Ezekiel Emanuel's words
• Betsy McCaughey being "smacked down" by Jon Stewart for twisting words (though  he wasn't exactly right himself in how he read of House Bill, either)
• Barney Frank's back talk to a town hall attendee
• Charles Grassley saying who knows what?  At this point, I'd stopped caring.
• the AMA, the AARP, America's Health Insurance Plans, PhARMA, and other special interests jock ying for airtime, advertising space and the op-ed page to spin reform and where they stand on it.  

Nowhere in this list is You, and your health needs, or those of your loved ones.  

So where can one go these days to read/listen to thoughtful ideas and deeper discussion? Here's a couple of suggestions:

• The News Hour's "R is for Reform series" 
• The New England Journal of Medicine's Health Reform Center
• Atul Gawande's article in the New Yorker, "The Cost Conundrum"
• David Goldhill's article in this month's Atlantic, "How American Health Care Killed My Father"

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www.rahulkparikh.com

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