Worried that the Health Care reform bill doesn't address high cost of Medical care in US?

[rgbecker]

Read this article from the New Yorker by Atul Gawande. "Testing, Testing" shows how the bill will address the complex problems of health care costs in the US. If you are a black and white kind of guy who can't stand a more nuanced approach...don't bother, but if you think the bill is lacking ways to address the rapidly rising costs of health care read what this doctor/scholar who has written much about health care costs, thinks about this latest version of health care reform. Farmers, especially, take note and tell us your experiences with government help in your fields. I for one would be interested after reading Gawande's article.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/12/14/091214fa_fact_gawande

[bfarq]

1. Interesting article, but he glosses over the two most important points

Most of his discussion is about the collection of data and promotion of best practices. Yes, of course. But let's understand that is the whole "death panels" thing.

On the very first page, he noted "Between 1999 and 2009, the average annual premium for employer-sponsored family insurance coverage rose from $5,800 to $13,400, and the average cost per Medicare beneficiary went from $5,500 to $11,900." He used that as a launching point to argue that costs are increasing faster than inflation and are not sustainable.

OK, just about everybody gets that. But not a word about the two most important conclusions from that data:

1) The price of private insurance is going up MUCH faster than Medicare. In other words, Medicare is much closer to the rate of inflation. Still a problem, but not nearly the problem of private insurance. Today's cars last longer, are more efficient and have more safety features. It is not a problem if the cost of a car is higher than the rate of inflation because it is a fundamentally better product. Likewise for health care. Today's cancer treatments are better. If you have good insurance, you get better medicine than you did 10 years ago. It is OK to pay a bit more. What is not OK is to have profiteering sucking 40% of the money out of the system.

2) Medicare patients are elderly. Their health care should cost more. They need more drugs and procedures. Employer-based insurance should be MUCH, MUCH cheaper because it is covering mostly people in the prime of their lives. But in fact, private insurance is costing 15% MORE than Medicare. it ought to be 50% LESS.

The fact that this writer didn't even stop to acknowledge the significance of those numbers tells me he's either not very knowledgeable ot not very objective.