Legal Commentary

Understanding The Power Of Government Run Health Insurance

By Big Tent Democrat

In a way, it is stunning to me that someone like Matt Yglesias, who has spent the year pooh poohing the public option and arguing that it be dropped by progressives would write this:

[I]t’s important to understand that [Medicare's] low reimbursement rates are a feature not a bug. [. . .] [O]n the one hand, that funding levels are high. But it also means that there’s a reasonable amount of interest in getting as much health care services per dollar as possible. Consequently, providers are paid enough to make it worth their while to see Medicare patients, but much less than they’d like to make. The result is not a perfect program (far from it) but this particular aspect of Medicare is an example of big government at its best—serving clients’ interests rather than those of providers.

I have written it a million times - here is one million one - the one tested and proven method of controlling health care costs is Medicare. Health care reform that creates a program that COULD become like Medicare is the only proven reform that has been proposed. The wonks will tell you all about the wonderful "bending the curve" provisions like the Exchange, and the excise tax and all the rest. What they do not tell you is that none of that - absolutely none of it, has been proven to work in any setting ever. Only one program has been proven to work to cut costs - the government run insurance program known as Medicare.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 10, 2009 (boomark / email).