NYT: Current Health Care Legislation Will Not Control Medical Costs, Experts Warn

[steven johnson]

I know money issues in the healthcare debate have become a litmus test for whether anyone thinks that healthcare reform can succeed: believers say money won't be an deal killer and doubters say that it will. The health insurance industry report, prepared by Price Waterhouse Coopers suggested that health premiums would rise sharply as a result of the proposed heath care legislation and poured more gasoline on the money debate.

We can leave the system the way it is now and the issues will be thrashed out state by state as healthcare costs spiral out of control Or we can have healthcare reform in which case the Federal Government will have a huge control over healthcare distribution and payments. In my opinion, money issues will eventually tear the system apart if we do nothing. So, the question, IMHO is who we are going to allow to slice up the medical money pie. There will be winners and losers. Who do you trust?

Prescriptions
Making Sense of the Healthcare Debate

October 12, 2009, 12:08 pm
Current Health Care Legislation Will Not Control Medical Costs, Experts Warn
By David M. Herszenhorn

With Democrats increasingly confident that they can pass major health care legislation this year, some of the nation’s foremost experts are warning that the emerging bills do not do enough quickly to tamp down soaring medical costs — the biggest problem facing the majority of Americans, who already have insurance.

But Dr. Fisher said the bills did not include a tool to promote cost-efficient care: reducing Medicare payment rates as a penalty if costs rise too fast. “Rather than across-the-board cuts,” he said, “let’s only do the cuts in regions that are growing too fast in per-capita spending. There’s a way to guarantee savings.”

The absence of such a provision is not a result of special-interest lobbying but rather lawmakers’ basic instincts to protect their home turf: high-cost regions fear being punished by steep cuts, and low-cost regions want flexibility to let their costs rise, if necessary, and not face restrictions tied to their historic efficiency.

A member of the group, Elizabeth A. McGlynn, associate director of RAND Health, said that her firm’s research showed that the legislation would do more to provide benefits for the uninsured than to change the overall upward trajectory in spending.




Current Health Care Legislation Will Not Control Medical Costs, Experts Warn