The cost implications of health care reform

Lots of arguments are being made about whether or health care reform will be economically sustainable in the long term. Many forget that one of the big reasons for reform was that our current trajectory was clearly unsustainable, and the bill that passed is taking a shot at a much more humane system, with attempts to pay for it. Many people on the right seem to be ignoring that a big part of the bill covers pilot projects to figure out different ways to lower costs, which could be implemented on a large scale in the future. If the authors of the bill just decided ahead of time what cost savings to try without real data to support them, and required those in the bill, it would indicate much more of a top-down control approach. Ironically, that’s what those on the right accuse this administration and congress of doing, despite the creative way the provisions were written.

Here is a reasoned economic analysis, albeit a leftward one, of the future of healthcare costs.

And here is some disclosure of this economist’s background, for those who want to find a reason to claim he’s full of it. But those who would decry Jonathan Gruber’s conflict of interest probably overlap somewhat with those who don’t like that the government appointees dealing with fixing the financial regulatory structure are not businessmen who are the biggest experts on the financial markets. No matter what side you are coming from, the top experts in any area that the government needs to regulate always have ties that could be considered conflict of interest. Their expertise cannot be dissociated from the fact that they earn a living implementing it.

What’s more interesting than this is that we really are witnessing a better way to approach many of the major problems our nation is facing. It’s too bad that so many vocal opponents of change don’t seem to understand that the status quo in so many areas is killing us slowly (and in some cases not so slowly). It would be naive to think that politics are no longer a consideration in legislation, but with this bill, and with the steps taken in education, we really have the chance to be a better, science-based nation, with less cynical pandering to the lowest common denominator of our society than we have seen in decades. As a scientist I know this is a better way.

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