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The Solution to the Cost-Control Crisis Is Obvious
So obvious that no one has grasped it. The solution to our cost-control problem is to stop incurring costs.
See what I mean? So simple no one thinks of it. But it’s true.
Right now, there is a huge debate over health care in this country — access to health care, delivery of health care, ability to pay for health care, who pays for health care, people dying for lack of health care, and so on. We are told that we have to find a way to make sure that all Americans have access at least to basic preventive health care.
But this costs money! People say, Well, when millions of people don’t have health insurance, that costs money, too. But that’s money we’re already spending! If there is a poor family, and that poor family cannot afford to pay for the doctor, and they go to the emergency room, and that costs money that raises the cost of health care for everyone, well that’s water under the bridge. Why spend even more money for that family to have basic health care coverage — or millions of families like that family?
Instead of expanding health care coverage to more Americans, we should be cutting it! We should be reducing the number of Americans who get public monies, not increasing them!
Look, I know I’m not explaining this very well, so let me have Robert J. Samuelson explain it to you. He does a much better job than I can (bolds are mine):
One of the bewildering ironies of the health-care debate is that President Obama claims to be attacking the status quo when he’s actually embracing it. Ever since Congress created Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, health politics has followed a simple logic: Expand benefits and talk about controlling costs. That’s the status quo, and Obama faithfully adheres to it. While denouncing skyrocketing health spending, he would increase it by extending government health insurance to millions more Americans.
Just why this approach is perennially popular is no secret. Health care is viewed as a “right.” Promoting it seems “moral.” Cost controls suggest dreaded “rationing.” So there’s a powerful bias toward expansion.
History is unambiguous. Originally, Medicare covered only those 65 and older. In 1972, Congress added the disabled, now about 15 percent of beneficiaries, notes Diane Rowland of the Kaiser Family Foundation. It also covered dialysis for kidney failure. In 2003, Congress created a drug benefit. Along the way, other services (hospice care, mammograms) were added.
Medicaid — the federal-state program for the poor — is the same story, says Rowland. Initially, it covered mainly people on welfare, as defined by states. Gradually, eligibility broadened. Now, children ages 6 to 18 in households under the poverty line ($22,050 for a family of four) get it. Congress also set higher limits (133 percent of the poverty line) for pregnant women and children under 6. In 1997, Congress created the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to expand coverage further.
Meanwhile, open-ended reimbursement by government and private insurance has ballooned health spending despite repeated pledges to “contain” costs. For example, health payments for individuals rose from less than 1 percent of federal spending in 1965 to 23 percent in 2008.
Obama would perpetuate this system. …
See what I’m trying to get at, here? If we want to put an end to skyrocketing health care costs, we have to stop spending on health care.
5 Responses to “The Solution to the Cost-Control Crisis Is Obvious”
Kathy – too bad you don't get the underlying reality being presented, and only post this in a facetious manner.
While certainly no one (really) thinks we need to stop spending on health care, that doesn't mean the opposite, spend even more, is true or a good idea.
Any true reform that didn't cost $1- $3 B more over the next ten years, one that could actually show a way to reduce medical costs overall nationwide while expanding coverage, would quickly be embraced by most everyone, and certainly by me.
But that is not what is being proposed. One good, quick way to reduce medical costs is always denounced on by thee left – tort reform. Ask anyone who is a doctor, or has family members who are medical doctors (my brother is an oral surgeon), and they can tell you just how large a percentage of their income goes to malpractice and related insurances.
A good percentage of the paperwork required by government and insurance companies is driven by these same concerns, which is another hidden cost that is embedded in the system.
There are other reforms, many proposed by the left as well, that would reduce costs without affecting benefits. But they are not politically viable.
These days, the only politically acceptable options seems to be have government take control of a larger share, increase the costs further, increase taxes to support it, reduce choices, and then wonder why people are so revolted by what is trug to be shoved down their throats.
Cost cutting? Cost cutting? You want to cut costs, stop the damned wars, then we can afford for everyone to have Cadillac health care without increasing spending a dime. In fact, spending would go down. If we totally abolished the military, just send them home at full pay for life, we would save more than $400 billion a year. Abolish Homeland Security and send all their employees home with lifetime pay, we could save another $100 billion.
Cost cutting, my sorry ass. The simple fact is that if I had $1 billion dollars in cash, I could buy the congress and the senate to not only impeach Obama and have him tried for war crimes and shot, but get a bill passed allowing men to rape female dogs on the National Mall. The government motto should be “of, by and for the rich.”
“But that is not what is being proposed. One good, quick way to reduce medical costs is always denounced on by thee left – tort reform.”
Define the tort reform that you feel would make a big difference. So far it hasn't made much of a difference to those states that have passed it.
And in case you're wondering, I'm completely serious. I mean, I don't like the way it's handled now and would like to see a radical overhaul. I just don't think it will make as big a difference unless (and maybe not even then) it's as drastic as what I'm thinking of.
Just think of how much cheaper healthcare would be if the government wasn't involved as much, with costs brought down more people could afford coverage.