Join the Discussion

Reply
Report this post

What Mr. Consason overlooks is the cost estimates provided for every government programs are never even close to the actual costs. 1 trillion might be negligible but it likely will actually cost 10 of trillions. Just compare the cost estimates of medicaid/medicare when proposed to the actual costs. Similarly, compare the cost estimates of Social Security when proposed. In the second case of course Social Security was also promised as a voluntary program and all money was forever separate from the normal budgeting process. We now fine it is mandatory and every spare cent it ever had was used was absconded and all that remains is an IOU from the US of A. Another great lie is that just as soon as there is a public plan that most employers will not immediately drop the private plans and pay whatever costs (which will initially be somewhat lower) they are charged for the public plan. This makes sense as they can also reduce their costs for employees to manage the plans, which increases the cost benefit. So within a very short period, everyone will find themselves on the public plan. The last lie is the reduction in costs. The only way to accomplish this is to limit the number of procedures performed by rationing. So you get long waiting times or result based decisions (The patient is too old/smokes/drinks/is over weight) so they do not qualify for this procedure. First of all, I can't imagine that the American public will ever accept this and therefore the politicians will not have the stomach for it and secondly the lawyers will blame the doctors and hospitals when the patient has a bad result when a procedure is not done or delayed. In both cases, the costs of medicine will increase regardless of the overly optimistic dreams of the proponents of health care reform.