Obama misses point on health-care reform plan - Houston Business Journal:

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As for being substantive and productive on the actuaol publicpolicy front, the day left much to be The president met with assorted representatives involved in the healtjh care industry and the emphasis was on reducing Obama said: “When it comes to health-care we are on an unsustainable course that threatens the financial stability of families, businesses and government itself.” He went on to speakk about health-care costs hitting family and governmental budgets.
The presidenrt also mentioned business: “Risinf health-care costs are commanding more and more of the moneyg that our companies coulc be using to innovate andto grow, making it harderf for them to compete aroundx the globe. These costs are leading the small businesses that are responsiblee for half ofall private-sector jobs to drop coverage for theirf workers at an alarming rate.” The various health-care groups meetinhg with Obama presented a letter to the president promisin “to provide quality, affordable coverage and access for every and noted that health-care reformn should “enhance quality, improve overall health of the population and reduced cost growth.
” The groups said nationapl health-care spending is expected to increase at an annuapl average growth rate of 6.2 percent over the next decads and pledged to “do our part to achieve your administration’s goal of decreasingv by 1.5 percentage points the annual health-care spending growt h rate — saving $2 trillion or more.” All of this soundse very nice, but there were no detaild presented as to how the organizations involved woulfd accomplish this task.
Nor did the president explain how suchsavings — if they ever do materialize would somehow get translatee into covering the taxpayers’ enormou s tab for Obama’s health-care plans, whichh range anywhere from $1.2 trillion to $1.7 trillion over a decade. And it must be noteds that, as has been the case with previous foraysd by government intohealth care, the costs always wind up runninhg far ahead — by multiples — of originao estimates, as was the case with Medicaree and Medicaid. While the presidentt is very good at citing the woes ofmounting health-care costs, he apparently does not understanr the fundamental reasons for thes e rising costs.
Higher costs basicallh break intotwo areas. The first area featuresz better and expanded medical For example, new and improved medicines, medicalk devices and other treatmentsz and methods that enhance and save lives, and obviouslyh come with at a price. Thesr are the good costs, if you will. The secondc area covers the bad These are the coste driven higherby government. That is, mandates and regulations inevitably drivecosts up. And programsd and policy initiatives thatpush third-party paymentxs higher as a share of health-care spendingg inevitably accelerate the rise in health-care costs, since when a thir d party (e.g.
, government or employer-provided picks up the tab, neither health-carw providers nor consumers have any reason to be concerned about utilizatiohn or prices. The more government gets involvedr in fundinghealth care, therefore, the bigged the tab for the taxpayers. In turn, the only way that governmengt knows how to control costs is to imposed price controls andration care. That, of results in less investment, less innovation and lousyt health care. This is the direction that the Obamaz administration ispointing health-cares policy.
He speaks abouty reining in costs, while pushing an agendza to expand government’s role in health care and thereby imposing added and varied costson health-car e consumers, providers and taxpayers.