Posted by David Hyman:
Health Reform: Naive, Hypocritical, or Simply Dishonest?
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_06_14-2009_06_20.shtml#1245093708
Those are the three choices offered by Robert Samuelson in a
[1]scathing piece on the Obama administration�s health reform
initiative in today�s Washington Post:
It's hard to know whether President Obama's health-care "reform" is
naive, hypocritical or simply dishonest. Probably all three. The
president keeps saying it's imperative to control runaway health
spending. He's right. The trouble is that what's being promoted as
health-care "reform" almost certainly won't suppress spending and,
quite probably, will do the opposite.
* * *
[The Obama administration] talk[s] endlessly about restraining
health spending -- "bending the curve" is the buzz -- as if talk
will suffice.
* * *
The central cause of runaway health spending is clear. Hospitals
and doctors are paid mostly on a fee-for-service basis and
reimbursed by insurance, either private or governmental. The
open-ended payment system encourages doctors and hospitals to
provide more services -- and patients to expect them. It also
favors new medical technologies, which are made profitable by heavy
use. Unfortunately, what pleases providers and patients
individually hurts the nation as a whole. That's the crux of the
health-care dilemma, and Obama hasn't confronted it. His emphasis
on controlling costs is cosmetic.
For more on the role of the payment system in our current state of
affairs, see[2] this forthcoming piece.
References
1.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/14/AR2009061402444.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
2. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1377051
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