NewsMax.com reports that Vice President Joe Biden warned today that “If Congress does not pass a healthcare bill soon, the opportunity to reform the U.S. healthcare system will be lost for a generation.”
With due respect to Biden, whom we have long admired, we think he is caught up in the heat of the moment. Indeed, we agree with Republicans who call for starting over again and dividing legislation into reform components, although the outcome we envision may be different from what they seek.
NewsLanc suggests Congress first concentrate on a bill to curtail health care costs before considering legislation to expand coverage. Just about every reform that experts proposed has been bargained away in an attempt to obtain 60 Senate votes.
The health care system has become a parasite, destroying businesses’ ability to compete abroad and depriving workers of wages needed for other important purposes. We must not continue to pay almost twice as much per person for health care than other industrialized nations, especially when our results are mediocre in comparison.
Let our target be reducing costs by 25% while maintaining and even improving performance. When we have passed that legislation, then let’s use some of the savings plus heavier taxation on the rich to expand coverage to most of the rest of the population.
Health costs go up each year based on medicare rates; its not much. Utilization is rocketing. Americans are in poor health. Only answer is rationing, high deductible plans.