Tuesday, July 21, 2009

"Health Care Reform" & Health Care Costs

The Obama Team continues to make the rather strange argument that their "health care reform' bills will "control costs" in the future. An interesting argument! Without question the so-called reform bills will increase the demand for health care. Isn't that the point of the legislation? -- to allow better access to health care for more Americans. Doesn't that mean more health care for more people. How does that control costs?

Well, one thought that the President has offered on a number of occasions is that "preventative care" will do the trick. No serious medical expert buys into that one. In fact, the opposite is true. More preventative care, which, by the way is a good idea, will ultimately increase the demand for health care not lower it. So, that won't do the trick.

Here's another idea. Have the American Medical Association announce that they will find hundreds of billions of dollars of savings without any specifics. That should work.

The cold hard facts are that the so-called "health care reform" will dramatically overburden our existing health care facilities by expanding the use and overuse of such facilities. Instead of controlling costs, costs will escalate further as they have since the introduction of medicare and medicaid (and for the same reasons).

Only by outlawing actual health care procedures, which is what other countries have done, will costs be contained. For example, if you just add the addendum that everyone is covered but we only provide care for folks under 65, then you can save a lot of money. In effect, that is essentially the British system today. Welcome to the new world of Obama care. It's great unless you happen to get sick.