What We Give Up for Health Care [View all]

[eridani]

[What We Give Up for Health Care
By Ezekiel J. Emanuel
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/what-we-give-up-for-health-care/?scp=2&sq=Ezekiel%20Emanuel&st=cse

When it comes to health care, most liberals are committed above all to ensuring that every American has insurance. In their view, the greatest achievement of the health care reform act passed under President Obama is to finally erase the moral stain of the United States? being the only major developed country without universal coverage. But we also hold the questionable distinction of having the world?s most expensive health care system ? what about cost control? For many liberals, that just sounds like a cover for heartless conservatives who care only about cutting benefits and not about helping people in need.

But liberals are wrong to ignore costs. The more we spend on health care, the less we can spend on other things we value. If liberals care about middle-class salaries, public education and other state-funded services, then they need to care about controlling health care costs every bit as much as conservatives do.

During the campaign season and into 2013--a vital year for health care legislation--liberals must make the issue of cost control their own.

(Ezekiel J. Emanuel is an oncologist, former White House adviser and a vice provost and professor at the University of Pennsylvania.)

Comment by Don McCanne of PNHP:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/what-we-give-up-for-health-care/?comments#permid=124

Truly universal coverage and effective cost containment were the goals from the beginning, but Congress and the administration selected a model of reform that cannot possibly bring us either.

It is likely that tens of millions will remain uninsured because of affordability issues, and the measures supposedly designed to control costs will have very little impact. A new CBO report confirms that some of the mechanisms proposed have already been shown to be ineffective in pilot studies.

All other wealthy nations provide comprehensive services to everyone, and at prices that on average are half that of the United States. The other nations use similar technology, experience aging of their populations, and have similar rates of health care utilization, yet they are still able to contain their costs. The difference is that they have strong public oversight of their systems of social insurance or government health services.

Although single payer systems are well recognized for their savings through administrative efficiencies, they use many other tools to slow the increases in health care costs. These tools are not experimental, like those in the Affordable Care Act. They have already proven to be effective beyond any doubt in nations with such systems.

We can cover absolutely everyone, which should make the liberals happy, and we can do it while truly bringing our health care costs under control, and isn't that what the conservatives want as well?

My comment: Health care is the one problem we can solve without spending more money than we already spend. As Kucinich once said "We are already paying for universal heatlh care--we just aren't getting it." Note that the CBO could care less about how much consumers would save with single payer health care; their mission is only to analyze costs to the government. IMO anyone who prefers a $900/month premium to a $125/month tax shouldn't be allowed outdoors without adult supervision.