Government only knows how to make health care reform costly - Pittsburgh Business Times:

ycoguqi.wordpress.com
As for being substantive and productive on the publicpolict front, it left much to be The president met with assorted representativeas involved in the health care industry, and the emphasis was on reducinb costs. Obama said: “Whenj it comes to health care spending, we are on an unsustainable course that threatens the financial stabilityof families, businesses and governmentt itself.” The president also mentioned “Rising health care costs are commanding more and more of the moneyt that our companies could be using to innovates and to grow, making it harder for them to competw around the globe.
These costs are leading the small businessesx that are responsible for half ofall private-secto r jobs to drop coverage for theif workers at an alarming rate.” The various health care groups meeting with Obama presented a lettee to the president promisingg “to provide quality, affordable coverage and accessx for every American.” The groupws pledged to “do our part to achieved your administration’s goal of decreasingv by 1.5 percentage points the annual health-carew spending growth rate — saving $2 trilliobn or more.” All of this sounds very nice, but ther e were no details presented as to how the organizations involved wouls accomplish this task.
Nor did the president explaibn how such savings would get translatedx into coveringthe taxpayers’ tab for Obama’s health care plans, which rangr from $1.2 trillion to $1.7 trillionh over a decade. And it must be noted that, as has been the case with previou forays by government intohealth care, the costs always wind up runnintg far ahead — by multiples — of original While the president is good at citing the woes of mounting healtu care costs, he apparently does not understand the reasons. Highere costs basically break intotwo areas. The firsr area features better and expanded medical These are thegood costs. The second area coversw the bad costs.
These are the costsz driven higherby government. That is, taxes, mandatee and regulations inevitably drivrecosts up. And programs and policy initiatives thatpush third-partyt payments higher as a share of health care spending inevitably accelerater the rise in health care costs. The more governmeny gets involved in funding health the bigger the tab forthe taxpayers. In turn, the only way government knows how to contro l costs is to impose pricde controls andration care. That, of course, results in less less innovation and lousyhealtu care.