The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Negotiating Our Surrender

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The health care industry is promising cost reductions. My Cato Institute colleague Michael Cannon warns us that the health care industry is not negotiating its surrender. Rather, it is negotiating our surrender--or at least the surrender of our money.

Writes Cannon:

So it may be that the industry's overture is actually an effort to cook the books by ganging up on the CBO: "See, you silly number-crunchers? Even the industry believes these reforms will reduce spending."

What's in it for the industry? Universal coverage gives them a huge revenue boost in the short term - and then every lobbyist at today's White House media event will fight those spending reductions over the long term.

The industry isn't negotiating its surrender - they're negotiating the surrender of even more of our money.

View all comments (8) | Leave a comment

Gabe| 5.11.09 @ 4:57PM

The irony is almost too rich to believe: conservatives getting angry at their corporate friends for trying to maximize profits at the expense of the taxpayer! I'm loving it!

Tom Paine| 5.11.09 @ 7:04PM

Gabe --

"Conservatives" today are only happy if the middle class is getting screwed. Modern day "conservatism" is just the enforcing of humiliating consequences for any working people who hope to see a doctor, buy a house, or send their children to college. It is a corporatist sham, and bunko, fraudulant rip-off.

BD57| 5.11.09 @ 7:48PM

One of the great thing about trolls - - - - we get to see how the insecure make themselves feel good .... tearing down those they think SHOULD feel inferior to them.

Tommy - anytime you want to write your neighbor a check for all his medical bills, so he won't be 'screwed', you're free to do so. But, as usual, you want to be generous with other people's money.

Tom Paine| 5.11.09 @ 7:57PM

BD57 --

Do you have any idea how many people go bankrupt every year because of medical bills?

It's a disgrace. The U.S. has the resources to have the best health system in the world, and yet we get less for every dollar spent on health care then all of the other industrialized democracies. It's insane.

So -- as for your predictable, tedious, and endlessly repeated quip.

Try to keep in mind that YOU are paying for the uninsured, every time you go to the doctor. YOUR health and YOUR family's health are endangered by the current system. Even if you have coverage, chances are it's less than you think. I would hope you'd never have to find out the hard way what millions of people learn about their coverage every year.

Alan Brooks| 5.11.09 @ 9:35PM

Paine,
there's no morality in ANY party. No fiscal responsibility
at any level, anywhere.

Thomas| 5.11.09 @ 11:11PM

The same people who put the gigantic third-party payer systems in place that caused skyrocketing health care cost, the U.S. Congress. Now wants to put even more cost and service controls in place to correct the situation that their actions created in the first place. Sweet.

fed up| 5.12.09 @ 10:01AM

I won't believe that anyone is serious about curtailing health care costs until I see real tort reform... taking "lawyers hitting the lottery" out of health care costs... can you say Malpractice Insurance???

Nurse| 5.12.09 @ 4:42PM

Thomas and fed up...right on. There are a lot of physicians who would like to discount an office visit charge, but they can't because it's insurance fraud. Doctors also can't call up and find out what competitors are charging in the community so they can offer a lower price and be competetive because that violates some other federal thing. I think if we changed our legal system to "loser pays" it would relieve and prevent many frivolous lawsuits. Unfortunately, many elected officials are lawyers, as is the President (not that all lawyers are bad, but they clearly keep the interests of their profession in mind when enacting and supporting legislation). The other issue is, I do think patients need to be responsible for some of the costs. They've been sheltered largely from direct healthcare costs because they usually just have a co-pay or deductible to meet. They need to be empowered to shop around for pricing for non-emergent service, and there's absolutely no incentive to do that when your insurance plan (or government) is footing the bill.