Friday, December 11, 2009

Health Care Reform: The Short Version

Robert Reich sums up what's happened to health care "reform" in the last week or so in one paragraph:

[We] end up with a system that's based on private insurers that have no incentive whatsoever to control their costs or the costs of pharmaceutical companies and medical providers. If you think the federal employee benefit plan is an answer to this, think again. Its premiums increased nearly 9 percent this year. And if you think an expanded Medicare is the answer, you're smoking medical marijuana. The Senate bill allows an independent commission to hold back Medicare costs only if Medicare spending is rising faster than total health spending. So if health spending is soaring because private insurers have no incentive to control it, we're all out of luck. Medicare explodes as well.

How a Few Private Health Insurers Are on the Way to Controlling Health Care

The rest is well worth reading, but that's the executive summary.


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