By Dave Anderson:
Paul Krugman is too polite as he accurately describes the broken dynamic of the faux deficit hawks and centrists in the Senate, I'll translate at the end.
I�m talking instead about the self-described centrists, pundits and
politicians, who have spent years lecturing us on the need to make hard
choices and actually come to grip with America�s problems; you know who
I mean. So what did they do when faced with a chance to help confront
those problems? They made excuses...What reformers have been saying for years is that the only way to
tackle health care costs is in the context of a reform that also
tackles the problem of uninsurance; and so it has proved. As Atul Gawande
and others have pointed out, the Senate bill tries a wide variety of
approaches to cost containment � in fact, just about everything that
has been suggested. We don�t know which of these approaches will work
or how well, but that�s more than anyone has managed to achieve ever
before.Oh, and the legislation is fiscally responsible from the start.
So did the deficit scolds, the people who preach the need to rein in
entitlements and start paying our way, rally behind the
cost-containment plans? Um, no. As I said, they made excuses, whining
that the bill doesn�t do enough (as if there were any chance of passing
a bill with everything they want), or insisting that even though the
legislation does do the right thing, it doesn�t matter, because
Congress won�t let the cost cuts go into effect � which turns out to be
a claim at odds with the evidence of history.
I think that the bill does a lot to increase access, but I don't see the cost control mechanisms. The real potential savings would come from debulking the system of the tons of unnecessary medical work being performed, for various reasons. The public won't tolerate this. Look at their volcanic reaction a few wks ago with Mammogramomania. Americans want it all, not matter the cost. Of course, someone else is usually paying for it. www.MDWhistleblower.blogspot.com
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