The House health care bill will increase health care spending by $289 billion over ten years, according to a report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a non-partisan arm of the Department of Health and Human Services.
According to the final bullet point of the report, “With the exception of the proposed reductions in Medicare payment updates for institutional providers, the provisions of H.R. 3962 would not have a significant impact on future health care cost growth rates.”
Jaime Dupree, Washington reporter for WSB Radio reports that Chief Actuary Richard Foster “delivered a real gut kick to the Democratic plans, saying “the longer-term viability of the Medicare update reductions is doubtful.””
Dupree says that means “plans in the bill to cut costs in Medicare probably won’t occur, because certain groups will complain and the Congress will then go back on the proposed cuts, just like we have seen in the reductions in Medicare payments for Doctors, the so-called “Doc Fix”.”
The report challenges the Democrat’s fundamental claim that their plan would bend the cost curve. The Democrats don’t really know the economic impacts of their bill, nor do they understand its costs because centralized planning for major portions of the economy is not a viable approach. Free markets will work better.
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One problem is that the free market for healthcare doesn’t exist. Blue Cross has a monopoly in many places, for example, and insurance companies are exempt from antitrust regulations–so they can fix prices. It would be very difficult to achieve a free market, but even if that could be accomplished, there is a public interest in having healthy citizens. The healthcare companies themselves would never pay the costs of providing substandard healthcare. Companies, governments, and paying customers would unless we were truly willing to turn people away from hospitals and emergency rooms when they were unable to pay. The free market works for widgets, but not for healthcare.