Before I get to the subject of this diary, here's a Netroots Nation update: I'll be moderating the health policy panel at Netroots Nation this year. I'm so thrilled to announce that Wendell Potter is one of the panelists. I'm waiting for confirmation from another hugely important person before I reveal all the details. Stay tuned, hopefully next week, I'll be able to give you the full all star lineup.
Two words: single payer.
The president knows exactly what needs to happen to reign in skyrocketing healthcare costs, so does everyone. But they took the one mechanism (a public option) which might have moved us in a better direction off the table during the cantankerous healthcare debate.
This is why if you're interested in a serious discussion on how to solve our debt crisis-- which requires a truthful discussion of how to control healthcare costs--you can't take the Kabuki theater and belly aching going on in Washington very seriously at all.
The other day on of all places CNBC, David Blitzer, chairman of the S&P 500 Index Committee made the point which the Washington political thugs refuse to deal with that (OMG), Medicare does a better job of controlling costs than commercial insurance.
Funny that Mark Haines said, "you're quoting the facts. some people think facts are partisan. i don't know how they get there, but they do." Pesky facts, that we Americans refuse to accept as reality.
Blitzer, of course, is talking about the for-profit junk insurance all of us will be 'mandated' to purchase in 2014 when if the PPACA kicks in. This is the overpriced crap which is bankrupting families and is now set to bankrupt the nation. Remember the caveat, 'think you're insured, think again!"
Here's the transcript.
thank you, julia. s&p's latest health care costs, report from february 2010 through february of this year shows health care costs rose 6.2%. that's good in a sense that it's down slightly from 6.3% in the previous 12-month period, but obviously way above the rate of inflation for everything else. here first on cnbc, david blitzer, chairman of the s&p 500 index committee. thanks for being with us. good morning mark. what do you have for us? health care costs continue to rise but the rate of increase continues to creep down a little bit. so the news isn't good but it's not getting worse. maybe a touch better. why are costs escalating at -- i don't know -- three or four times the rate of overall inflation? what's going on here? health care, despite the excitement about technology and drugs, health care is a labor intensive activity and people, labor costs a lot of money which seems to be the key factor driving it up. so, if i may, logically then you would find the worst or the most inflation occurring in hospitals. you would. indeed on the commercial side you do. on the medicare side, you don't. i think that brings up a different aspect. over the last few years we have heard a lot of arguments about single payer plans versus other kinds of plans. single payer means uncle sam pays for the health care. we pay him. right. medicare for people over 65 is a single payer plan and, indeed, we consistently see smaller rates of increase in medicare items than we do in commercial insurance, the kind of insurance that employers provide for employees. okay. i'm going to leave that lying there because some of our viewers now are going apoplectic thinking you have just endorsed single payer health care. i just reported the numbers. believe me, i understand. you're quoting the facts. some people think facts are partisan. i don't know how they get there, but they do. david, thank you very much. appreciate your input. thank you. breaking news.
Here's what one of my heroes Dean Baker had to say the other day about the posturing going on among the political class over the lunatic Ryan budget and debt crisis.
And it's the truth that no one is willing to talk about. Note Baker uses the word 'waste' to describe what we pay the parasitic private insurance industry to deny us care and practice medicine without a license.
However, this is the less important part of the story. The main reason that retiree health care costs will increase is that the private sector is less efficient at delivering care than the existing Medicare program. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that, under the Ryan plan, the increase in the cost of buying Medicare equivalent policies would be more than $30 trillion over Medicare's planning horizon.
This additional waste comes to almost $100,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country. It is approximately equal to six times the size of the projected Social Security shortfall. This waste is a direct transfer from retirees to the insurance industry and the health care industry.
A lot of people think that expecting anything in the way of meaningful additional healthcare reform from the federal government is an utter waste if time. So you need to look to the states to begin implementing reform which will control costs, and this of course means single payer.
Single payer in the states.
California and Vermont will lead the nation on the path to single payer. As some of you know, I'm on the all-volunteer Board of California OneCare, if you can help us with a modest donation that would be greatly and tremendously appreciated.
Donate to California OneCare
The potentially good news in California is that the voters seem open to a tax increase to get the finances of the state under control. If voters approve these tax increases, it seems possible even probable that they will approve the funding mechanism required to implement single payer in the state.
And Vermont is preparing for an historic vote on single payer in its legislature despite furious lobbying and fear mongering being spread by the insurance industry.
And remember in Canada, the "medicare" system began in Saskatchewan, and was eventually adopted throughout Canada. When the train leaves the station in Vermont and California, it will only be a matter of time, that Americans will demand universal single payer healthcare become the law of the land.