If You Have to Ask How Much Socialized Medicine Costs...
Feb 04, 2019
After dismissing for years the idea that Democrats’ health care plans would lead to a government takeover, new House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth on Tuesday asked Congress’ top economist to sketch out the options for a government takeover. The Kentucky Democrat also implicitly sketched out the political game plan: enact socialized medicine before patients and taxpayers understand what they’ll be losing.
In
a remarkable document that assumes short political memories, longtime ObamaCare
cheerleader Mr. Yarmuth acknowledges that the coverage and cost control
promised by
Affordable Care Act backers never materialized. Mr. Yarmuth admits that many Americans are still uninsured and still “struggle to afford their health care costs.” Rather than exploring ways to allow more market competition in a health care financing system long dominated by Washington policy, Mr. Yarmuth instead asks in a Tuesday letter to Congressional Budget Office director Keith Hall how Washington can control all of the financing. Specifically, Mr. Yarmuth asks for a report on the “design considerations that policymakers would confront in developing proposals to establish a single-payer system in the United States.”
At
a 2013 congressional hearing Mr. Yarmuth crowed that ObamaCare “is putting
customers back in charge of their health care.” It was a cruel joke for patients
who had their choices of plans and doctors taken away by the 2010 law. But now
Mr. Yarmuth and his fellow Democrats aren’t even pretending anymore—they want
Washington in charge.
In
Tuesday’s letter Mr. Yarmuth asks for many details about how a government-run
system might be structured and administered. But ironically—given that he is
supposed to be overseeing the federal budget and his letter is addressed to an
economist—Mr. Yarmuth makes it clear that he’s in no hurry to be informed on
one particular aspect of such a system: price.
Writes
Mr. Yarmuth:
The
report would not necessarily provide CBO’s estimate of the effects of any
particular proposal for a single-payer system on federal spending or national
health care spending but would, to the extent feasible, provide a qualitative
assessment of how the choices with respect to major design issues would affect
such spending.
Yes,
for as long as possible Democrats would like to have a qualitative discussion in which they
can talk about imagined benefits, rather than a quantitative discussion which can
only result in historic taxpayer sticker shock.
As
he discusses the options for putting Washington in charge of all health care,
Mr. Yarmuth doesn’t mention the government-run plan sponsored by Vermont
socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders that is popular among House Democrats. As for
such systems in other countries, Mr. Yarmuth writes that they “do not necessarily
provide a clear blueprint as to how such a system in this country would be
designed.”
The
public-relations problem for the Sanders plan is that its Marxist sponsor didn’t
quarrel with a staggering $32.6 trillion estimated taxpayer price tag. Instead Mr.
Sanders argued that it would be worth it because he would cut overall U.S.
health spending by radically reducing payments to doctors and other health care
providers—even to levels below the cost of providing services—while somehow
persuading them to continue practicing medicine in the U.S.
Mr.
Yarmuth and his colleagues also cannot get away with endorsing specific
programs that are already failing overseas. A paper last fall from the White
House Council of Economic Advisers noted not just the exorbitant costs of
socialized medicine but also the lower survival rates for cancer patients in
various European countries often presented as models of single-payer health care
compared to the U.S. The council noted as well the U.S. out performance on
longevity of older patients compared to many countries in the European Union.
In
sum, Mr. Yarmuth has unveiled the Democratic strategy: hold hearings to
describe the alleged virtues of government-run medicine, while keeping the cost
implications vague. Make enough meaningless alterations in the plan’s
architecture to be able to say it’s not BernieCare or an overseas program
already inflicting huge costs in money and/or patient suffering. Then jam
through single-payer in the first 100 days of the Kamala Harris administration
by arguing that it was thoroughly studied in the previous Congress.
Meanwhile over at the Congressional Budget Office, Mr. Hall and his team of economists should refuse to participate in this scam. Put a price tag on it.
Source: www.wsj.com