RSS Feed
A Squandered Opportunity
Democrats on the Senate Finance committee squandered a historic opportunity.
For the past year, Finance Chairman Sen. Max Baucus was a lonely Democratic voice on the need to not just expand coverage but to fundamentally change the delivery system. He never bought into the ridiculousness of "health insurance reform." In fact, he released thoughtful papers with serious ideas on how improving the quality of care would not only improve patient safety but lower costs at the same time. It appeared that he understood that insurance was not an island unto itself, but that insurance is merely a reflection of the delivery system.
Unfortunately, as the process wore on, the Finance Committee ultimately side-stepped delivery reforms. Worse, it devolved to the left's tried and true formula to expand coverage: higher taxes and more government. You need not look any further than the CBO estimate from last week to see that there are no delivery reforms at all. Just look at its evaluation of section III of the bill, "IMPROVING THE QUALITY AND EFFICIENCY OF HEALTH CARE, SUBTITLE A-TRANSFORMING THE HEALTH CARE DELIVERY SYSTEM." The CBO estimates that all of these self-described transformations--hospital value-based purchasing, quality infrastructure, the oxymoron of a CMS Innovation Center--will save a grand total of $7.3 billion over the next ten years. That is decimal dust when we may spend upwards of $35 trillion during that span.
A trillion-dollar bill that masks its true costs with budget gimmicks (doesn't fix doctor payment; pushes tens of billions in costs to states; accounts for ten years of revenue but only seven years worth of costs) is not the kind of "reform" our system needs.
By
Newt Gingrich
|
October 14, 2009; 3:32 PM ET
| Category:
Health Care Reform
,
Health costs
,
Insurance
Share This: 
Technorati
| Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook
Previous: NFIB's Take |
Next: It's Missing the Point
Posted by: politicsandamericanpie | October 15, 2009 8:50 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Dear Newt, how easy it is to throw stones whenn the entire Republican party line has been to obstruct each and every one of those 'good ideas' he professes are necessary. With the cost of health care rising nearly $100 billion dollars a year since Clinton first suggested reform over a decade ago- extrapolate that cost over the next ten years and the only cost you should worry about is the cost of doing nothing.