A battle over who to blame for rising health-care costs is escalating, as groups seek to pin the problem on each other and say none of the health-care legislation under consideration does enough to solve it.U.S. spending on health care reached $2.5 trillion in 2009, according to federal estimates. It is expected to jump to $4.5 trillion in 10 years. Insurers contend that they must pass on ever-higher bills from hospitals and doctors. Hospitals say they are struggling with more uninsured patients, demands by doctors for top salaries, and underpayments from Medicare and Medicaid.
Nearly every mainstream analysis calls for medical costs to continue to climb over the next decade, outpacing the growth in the overall economy and certainly increasing faster than the average paycheck. Those higher costs will translate into higher premiums, which will mean fewer individuals and businesses will be able to afford insurance coverage. More of everyone’s dollar will go to health care, and government programs like Medicare and Medicaid will struggle to find the money to operate.
The health care that we are currently providing in Medicare and Medicaid doesn’t cover the actual providers costs. The cost of all health care is set to rise over the next 10-15 years. The 2nd and 3rd largest portions of the federal budget are Medicare and Medicaid.
Why haven’t we done anything about this emerging threat? Simply put, its a political landmine. Over the last few weeks both sides have argued in all channels and have said that they can’t agree with each other. Isn’t the job of the legislative branch to protect the best interests of the American people? Shouldn’t they put their political interests aside and do the right thing – cut spending where they can and improve service where it is failing?
The time line as I saw it went like this
1. The President put a mandate to congress to come up with a plan
2. Congress hemmed and hawed and didn’t come up with anything concrete (many points were made and argued but no progress was made)
3. Republicans complained that the President didn’t provide leadership on the issue
4. The President, in absence of a clear plan, provided his own take on the situation
5. The Republicans complained that they didn’t like it
6. A health care summit was chaired by the President to move the process forward but the issue remains unresolved
7. The Democrats do not want to commit to a plan for fear of political suicide – if it fails, they are out of jobs and the other side wins
Basically, if the plan or lack of plan fails the Republicans “absolve” themselves of blame. If they procrastinate long enough they can pin all of the blame on the other party.
Who suffers? Every single tax payer in America suffers.
Its a huge issue – most economists will agree that when ceilings and controls are put into place less of the service will become available and quality will decline (do a search on NYC rent controls).
There is a lot of “fat” in the system and some people are making money – people are allowed to make money in a Capitalist society. I’m against inefficiency and waste.
I want everyone to be able to afford basic health care.
I want providers to provide that health care without doing so at a loss.
If we can’t do that – maybe we should cut it out – all of it. Social security should go too. People depend on that stuff – it is their livelyhood – people will die without it or we can go broke trying to provide it.
There are hard choice to me made by Senators and Congressmen – now is the time to make them – before its too late.
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