Why Does Health Care Need Reform?
Is it because health care is special? Or is it because we have treated health care as though it were special?
David Goldhill is the CEO of the Game Show Network and author of “How American Health Care Killed My Father,” in the September 2009 issue of The Atlantic.
In this Cato video, Goldhill explains why a consumer-driven health care sector would never produce the often horrific problems we see in American medicine, and why the legislation moving through Congress fails to address those problems.
See Goldhill’s complete remarks here.
House Democrats Choose Dishonesty
I’m not a fan of the House Democrats’ proposed takeover of the health care sector. (If there’s one thing that legislation is not, it’s “reform.”) But at least House Democrats were honest enough to include the cost of the $245 billion bump in Medicare physician payments in their legislation, unlike some committee chairmen I could mention.
Unfortunately, House Democrats have since decided that dishonesty is the better strategy. They, like Senate Democrats, now plan to strip that additional Medicare spending out of health “reform” and enact it separately. (Democrats are already trying to exempt that spending from pay-as-you-go rules, making it easier for them to expand our record federal deficits.) Why enact it separately? Because excising that spending from the “reform” legislation reduces the cost of health “reform”!
But why stop there? Heck, enact all the new spending separately, and the cost of “reform” would plummet! Enact the new Medicaid spending separately, and the cost of “reform” would fall by $438 billion! Do it with the subsidies to private health insurance companies, and the cost of “reform” would plunge by $773 billion! All that would be left of “reform” would be tax increases and Medicare payment cuts. Health “reform” would dramatically reduce federal deficits! Huzzah!
Except it wouldn’t, because at the end of the day Congress would be spending the same amount of money.
The only good news may be this. If this dishonest budget gimmick succeeds, then Congress will have “fixed” Medicare’s physician payments. Absent that “must pass” legislation, the Democrats health care takeover would lose momentum, and would have to stand on its own merit. That would be good for the Republic, though not for the legislation.
(Cross-posted at Politico’s Health Care Arena.)
Filed under: Cato Publications; Health, Welfare & Entitlements
“How American Health Care Killed My Father”
Not my father. David Goldhill’s father.
David Goldhill is a Democrat. He is the president and CEO of the Game Show Network. And he’ll be speaking on health care at a Cato Institute event on Capitol Hill this Thursday.
Why would you want to hear the president of the Game Show Network discuss about health care reform?
Because after Goldhill’s father succumbed to a hospital-acquired infection, Goldhill spent two years studying America’s health care sector. The product of those efforts is “How American Health Care Killed My Father,” an article in this month’s issue of The Atlantic that bloggers have acclaimed as a “stemwinder” and “a fascinating read.”
Goldhill analyzes why America’s health care sector is so dysfunctional and concludes that “this generation of ‘comprehensive’ reform will not address the underlying issues, any more than previous efforts did. Instead it will put yet more patches on the walls of an edifice that is fundamentally unsound—and then build that edifice higher.”
The event will take place in room B-340 of the Rayburn House Office Building at noon on Thursday, October 1. Click here to register.
Three Worthwhile Health Care Videos
The first comes from the group Patients United Now. Keep this video in mind the next time you hear someone say that a new “public option” is not about a government takeover of the health care sector.
The next video comes from the Independence Institute in Colorado. It is a nice complement to my colleague Michael Tanner’s recent study, “Massachusetts Miracle or Massachusetts Miserable: What the Failure of the ‘Massachusetts Model’ Tells Us about Health Care Reform.”
Finally, a really disturbing video showing Christina Romer, chair of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, refusing to admit to a congressman that the president’s reform plan would oust Americans from their current health plans.
It’s a shame what politics does to really smart people.
Filed under: Cato Publications; Health, Welfare & Entitlements
Cohn vs. AFP
The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn accuses Americans for Prosperity (AFP) of “lies” for running an ad that claims “Washington wants to bring Canadian-style healthcare to the U.S.”
AFP’s ad is more defensible than Cohn’s criticisms of it.
Cohn elides the question of whether Shana Holmes (the woman featured in the ad) was almost killed by Canada’s Medicare system. For a supporter of single-payer like Cohn, that is tantamount to admitting that, yeah, socialized medicine sometimes kills people.
Cohn argues that the ad is unfair because Canada has many advantages over the U.S. health care sector. That may be true, but the ad doesn’t appear to defend American health care. It merely says, “government should never come in between your family and your doctor” and “Don’t give up your rights.” That’s not pro-American health care or anti-reform. It’s just anti- the type of reform that Cohn wants. And it points to one area where our semi-socialized U.S. health care sector appears to be superior to Canada’s: quicker access to intensive treatments. Sometimes, that saves lives. In fact, AFP could go farther and say that the United States has another edge over Canada, in that we develop nearly all of the best new medical technologies. In fact, our medical technologies save Canadian lives, but Canada’s health care system (and its supporters) steal the credit.
Yet “the real lie,” Cohn claims, is that the ad suggests that “Washington” wants to impose a Canadian-style system on the United States. Cohn calls that claim “demonstrably false.” But consider:
- President Obama has said he would prefer single-payer and has hinted that he would like to make incremental changes in that direction.
- Many people who support a new public plan (e.g., Paul Krugman) do so because they believe it will lead to single-payer.
- Massachusetts, which has already implemented most of the reforms that Obama and congressional Democrats are considering, is now contemplating a large leap toward Canadian-style health care by imposing capitation on its entire health care sector.
- Government rationing becomes increasingly likely as government revenues fail to keep pace with the cost of government’s health care promises. (See again, Massachusetts.)
- The Left wants government to ration care. That’s the point of the comparative-effectiveness research funding. That draft House Appropriations Committee report committed a classic Washington gaffe when it said that certain treatments “would no longer be prescribed,” because it was admitting the truth.
Cohn is correct that no politician of influence is saying she wants to impose a Canadian-style system on the United States. But I prefer to pay attention to what they’re doing.
AFP: 1. Cohn: 0.
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