AP is now running a story with the banner headline: "Health care overhaul may cost about $1.5 trillion." Left unsaid, of course, at least in the headline, is that this is the projected cost over TEN YEARS, and that this basically assumes abject failure in reducing the growth of health care costs, much less getting them down to the level (in relation to our GDP) that they are in every other developed country.
The article contains this:
Still, the potential runaway costs are raising concerns among Republicans and some Democrats as Congress prepares to draft next year's budget. The U.S. spends $2.4 trillion a year on health care, more than any other advanced country. And some experts estimate that a third or more of that goes for tests and procedures that provide little or no benefit.
"We shouldn't just be throwing more money on top of the present system, because the present system is so wasteful," said Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee.
Well, of course not, Senator Gregg. So I assume that means you'll point out the utter hypocrisy of your fellow Republicans when they start howling about encouraging the use of evidence-based medicine, as they've already done. And since you're convinced that our present system is so wasteful, I trust that you'll join me in calling for hearings asking how it can be that countries including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Scandinavian countries, the Benelux countries, Spain, Italy, Greece, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, can all afford to provide health care to all of their citizens who pay into their social security system, how they can all do so at much lower cost than the United States, and how virtually all of them can do better than us on almost every objective measure of health care results, whether it be life expectancy, infant mortality, healthy life expectancy (my personal favorite), or virtually any other measure besides how much money gets thrown at the problem.
I've got a question for those who say we just can't afford it: Are we a poorer country than Spain ... than Italy ... than Greece ... than many other countries that seemingly CAN afford it? And since we've had lower taxes and less economic regulation than most of those countries during the post-World War II period (when we unquestionably had a stronger economy than ANY of them), does that not cause you to question at least a little of your worship of free markets in EVERY sector of our economy?
There are periodically those here who bash capitalism and trumpet the benefits of socialism. I'm not among them. For the production of MOST goods and services, I'm convinced that the free market produces the most good for the most people, and that socialism has proven repeatedly to be an abysmal failure. But to me, neither free markets nor socialism is God. In the economic sphere, I worship at the altar of pragmatism. And while reasonably regulated free markets are, at least to me, the most beneficial system for producing most goods and services, they have proven miserably inefficient at providing things such as health insurance in a cost-efficient and reasonable fashion.
So Senator Gregg, I agree that there is tremendous waste in the present system, and that we cannot simply pour more money on top of it. Will you join the effort to explore the health care systems in the rest of the world that produce BETTER health results than ours, and that do so at LOWER cost? And will you commit to evidence-based legislation, as I think physicians need to commit to evidence-based medicine, and support legislation based on the EVIDENCE of what actually works in other countries, rather than legislating on the basis if myths about how "unique" we are, and how we have "the best health care system in the world?" We're not all that unique. I've had a parent die of cancer, and I know people in other countries who have had the same experience. And while we may have the best health care in the world for those with ample connections and money, it's FAR from the best for most of us, and it's not even all that much better for the super-wealthy and super-well-connected.