CBO Takes a Stab at Health Care

One of our readers pointed us to a report from the Congressional Budget Office from December, 2008 on ways to control health care costs.

Granted, this is a bit over a year old and was published before Obamacrap (Patient Protection and Unaffordable Health Care) was signed in to law, but still is it somewhat revealing into the way the beltway brain trust (and I use that term loosely) operates.

In an attempt to cut health care they only get in a flesh wound, not a terminal slash so there are no Bates Motel shower scenes to frighten the reader.

I downloaded and quickly reviewed the document earlier today and was disappointed. The DC view of cutting health care costs consists of raising taxes while cutting reimbursement to medical providers. Yes, they do suggest that savings through information technology will (might) generate some savings but the majority of cost cutting methods are either in the form of pay doctors and hospitals less or shift more of the burden of funding Medicaid to the states.

Perhaps not so surprisingly, some of the ideas surfaced again during Obamacrap negotiations last year and again this year which means the folks in Washington really have no clue what they are doing when it comes to health care.

Here are some of the highlights of the 236 page report (linked above).

Establish AHP's (Association Health Plans) and allow carriers to sell health insurance across state lines. Both of these have been discussed before at InsureBlog and neither have merit. In fact, there are more negatives than positives to both of these proposals.

Establish a pay or play rule for employers. In other words, provide health insurance for your employees or pay a fine. That was one that the poli-critters liked so well they stuck it in Obamacrap.

They also called for establishing a national high risk pool for uninsurable individuals. For those of you playing along at home, this will be featured in Obamacrap and is due to roll out in less than 60 days. Of course Washington has yet to tell us what the benefits will be, what the premium rates will be or which medical conditions are considered eligible but that isn't holding them back. We predict a big thud by mid summer as the pool becomes a non-starter.

There are quite a few ways to cut Medicare spending, all of which involve paying doctors and hospitals even less than they do now and penalizing hospitals that have high admission rates for Medicare patients.

That is certain to go over well.

The report also looks at ways to raise money by taxing sweetened drinks, alcohol and tobacco. Of course alcohol and tobacco are already taxed. They just want to tax those items a bit more.

Bottom line is, there is nothing in this report that will stem the rising cost of health care. Rather their idea of saving money is to pay less for services and raise taxes.

For what its' worth, Obamacrap does all that and more.