Health Care Reform — Some Introductory Thoughts And Observations
Health Care Reform — Some Introductory Thoughts And Observations
By
Ken Eliasberg
Using the approach suggested in last week’s column — i.e. suspension of judgment (at least temporarily),a clear grasp of the facts pertinent to the proposal under consideration, and the use of common sense in analyzing the likely effects of this measure — let’s begin to take hard look at our health care “problem”and the proposed solution under Congressional consideration.
Also by way of introducing an analysis of the topic, let me make three observations:
As the quantity of health care goes up, the quality will
necessarily go down (it’s really quite simply a matter of supply and demand, i.e. you are asking the same supply of relatively busy health care practitioners to meet a significantly increased demand; it can’t be done, and, I assure you that it won’t be!). It is true that certain of the proposals take into consideration the need for more doctors and a possible method for attracting them. But for reasons noted in paragraph 3 below, I believe that, with the proposed government takeover of health care (and make no mistake about it, that’s what we are talking about, whether sooner or later — this is only the left’s first step; they will not rest until we have either a single-payer system or outright nationalized (socialized) health care) the proponents of this measure will not succeed in attracting more qualified candidates to the medical field..
2. You are placing a significant additional cost burden on a
system(Medicare) that is already facing bankruptcy (actually, it’s already bankrupt; it is being propped up by excessive governmental manipulation and intervention).
3.Finally, not only will the quality of health care go down, the
quantity will as well. You are almost assuredly guarantying
that, not only will the demand for medical services go up,
the supply will go down — not just because you will not be able to attract large numbers of competent new doctors; you will have difficulty retaining those already on the job.
That is, not only will the existing supply of health care professionals be unable to meet the increased burden being placed on them by the current proposals, many of them will not want to, i.e. many will seek an alternative career. Furthermore, you will reduce the pool of quality candidates seeking a career in health care. Why? Because doctors are professionals; they aspire to be health care entrepreneurs, not glorified civil servants.
Cost.- All sorts of numbers have been thrown out for public consideration, with Obama insisting, at least preliminarily, for the final cost to come in under a trillion dollars. And to arrive at that number all sorts of legislative legerdemain was practiced to provide at least the illusion that the dollar goal was reached, e.g. things like offloading doctor reimbursement to another legislative proposal. We have been down this road before with off budget items, and the obvious problem remains that no matter how far off the budget you put them, they still have to be paid.
However, while that was an interesting, if somewhat fanciful, approach, the final measure comes in at well over 1 trillion dollars; indeed, some have placed the final bill at well over 2 trillion dollars (as well as being close to 2,000 pages long), e.g. see a couple of interesting columns in theAmerican Thinker (americathinker.com) on November 8th; The True Cost of ObamaCare by James Simpson and The ‘true’ cost of health care reform; $2.6 trillion by Rick Moran (which, in turn, is based on a piece by Greg D’Angelo at Heritage Foundation’s Foundry blogentitled Yes, 2.6 Trillion! A Closer Look at the Full 10 Years of Spending in the House Bill (11/6/09). As noted, this amount is to allegedly be paid over 10 years, and, more importantly, Obama assures us that the measure will be revenue neutral (which is pure baloney). We’ll look at the cost neutrality aspect of these proposals more completely in ensuing columns; for present purposes, just think about coming up with a trillion to two trillion dollar proposal at a time when we’re wielding a deficit well in excess of a trillion dollars (as well as trillions of dollars of debt down the road as far as the eye can see). And think about it in several contexts, i.e. (1) the accuracy of cost estimates with respect to previous entitlement efforts, (2) the pending bankruptcy of medicare, (3) your personal satisfaction with your current health care situation, (4) your general awareness of government’s customary level of efficiency and cost effectivenessand (5) the tremendous burden that we are putting on our children and grandchildren(to be continued).