Will Overhaul Put the Brakes on Health Care Costs?

[steven johnson]

I have seen a lot of blue sky and sunshine assumptions when the Obama Administration discusses the practicality of healthcare reform.

I've heard computerized medical records will save it. I've heard weeding out fraud and abuse will save it. I've heard preventative medicine and disease management will save it.

There is not good evidence that any of these approaches is actually going to work.

The demographic trends, on the other hand, are well documented and frightening. The 2009 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports show the combined unfunded liability of these two programs has reached nearly $107 trillion. Welcome to the nightmare scenario.

Social Security and Medicare Projections: 2009

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON January 11, 2010 (AP) The Associated Press

(AP)Short of rationing, lawmakers have pulled nearly every available cost-control lever in the sweeping health care overhaul President Barack Obama and Democratic congressional leaders are pushing to finish.

It may take 10 years or more to find out (if it's going to work). Costs are expected first to go up, as tens of millions of previously uninsured Americans get coverage and start going for checkups

Taken together, the bills get a C-plus to B-minus on cost control, grading on the curve of what's politically doable.

The four big ideas for slowing costs are: discouraging high-priced health insurance by taxing it; paying hospitals and doctors for quality care and coordination instead of sheer volume of procedures; aggressively seeking savings from Medicare; and restructuring the health insurance marketplace to make it more competitive.

Will Overhaul Put the Brakes on Health Care Costs?

[Motown_Johnny]

1. Taken together, the bills get a C-plus to B-minus on cost control,

compared to an incomplete a C+ or B- lookis pretty good to me