On Fox News Newt explains why Congress refuses to make the same 365 choices available to members of Congress as part of health care reform: "Because it doesn't increase the control government has over health care."
Which is also one reason why insurance under the health care proposals are 3 times more expensive than are available in the marketplace.
The other reason: legislation is nothing but a huge subsidy to large corporations, most union benefits and the liberal imagination. Heaven forbid, people choose health plans with higher deductibles, lower premiums, less coverage than the micromanagers want us to have.
On a related note: Here's President Obama's OMB director on what is really happening to health care costs:
"On the consumer side, and despite media portrayals to the contrary, the share of health care expenditures paid out of pocket, which is the relevant factor for evaluating the degree to which consumers are faced with cost sharing, has plummeted over the past few decades, from about 33% in 1975 to 15% today. All available evidence suggests that lower cost sharing increases health care spending overall. The result is that collectively we all pay a higher burden, although the evidence is somewhat mixed on the precise magnitude of the effect."
Rather than allowing people to choose plans that allow for cost sharing and accumulate cash (especially important for people who are chronically ill) and include health insurance premiums to lock in rates and pay for one time costs Orszag endorses the current solution: using an expert panel to determine what doctors should do and how much they should get paid for it:
"The real traction, though, will come from building the results of that research into financial incentives for providers. In other words, if we move from a “fee-for-service” to a “fee-for-value” system, where higher-value care is awarded with stronger financial incentives and low- or negative-value health care is penalized with smaller incentives or perhaps even penalties, the effects would be maximized."
All of which is at the heart of the Baucus bill and every other piece of legislation. Well since CER has been implemented elsewhere and costs have gone up, what has been the result on patients? Dr. Orszag let's it slip:
"... if all one did was, say, reduce payment rates under Medicare and Medicaid, and then tried to perpetuate that over time without a slowing of overall health care cost growth, the result would probably be that fewer doctors would accept Medicare and Medicaid patients, creating an access problem that would be inconsistent with the underlying premise and public understanding of these programs."
www.issues.org/24.3/orszag.html
Which brings us back to Newt. All of this happens because of government control. The unintended consequences of government run health care.
Which is also one reason why insurance under the health care proposals are 3 times more expensive than are available in the marketplace.
The other reason: legislation is nothing but a huge subsidy to large corporations, most union benefits and the liberal imagination. Heaven forbid, people choose health plans with higher deductibles, lower premiums, less coverage than the micromanagers want us to have.
On a related note: Here's President Obama's OMB director on what is really happening to health care costs:
"On the consumer side, and despite media portrayals to the contrary, the share of health care expenditures paid out of pocket, which is the relevant factor for evaluating the degree to which consumers are faced with cost sharing, has plummeted over the past few decades, from about 33% in 1975 to 15% today. All available evidence suggests that lower cost sharing increases health care spending overall. The result is that collectively we all pay a higher burden, although the evidence is somewhat mixed on the precise magnitude of the effect."
Rather than allowing people to choose plans that allow for cost sharing and accumulate cash (especially important for people who are chronically ill) and include health insurance premiums to lock in rates and pay for one time costs Orszag endorses the current solution: using an expert panel to determine what doctors should do and how much they should get paid for it:
"The real traction, though, will come from building the results of that research into financial incentives for providers. In other words, if we move from a “fee-for-service” to a “fee-for-value” system, where higher-value care is awarded with stronger financial incentives and low- or negative-value health care is penalized with smaller incentives or perhaps even penalties, the effects would be maximized."
All of which is at the heart of the Baucus bill and every other piece of legislation. Well since CER has been implemented elsewhere and costs have gone up, what has been the result on patients? Dr. Orszag let's it slip:
"... if all one did was, say, reduce payment rates under Medicare and Medicaid, and then tried to perpetuate that over time without a slowing of overall health care cost growth, the result would probably be that fewer doctors would accept Medicare and Medicaid patients, creating an access problem that would be inconsistent with the underlying premise and public understanding of these programs."
www.issues.org/24.3/orszag.html
Which brings us back to Newt. All of this happens because of government control. The unintended consequences of government run health care.
