Forbes: "Obama Can Cure Health Care's Ills"

Stop Cornyn

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Tue Oct-28-08 07:04 AM
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Forbes: "Obama Can Cure Health Care's Ills"

Forbes: "Obama Can Cure Health Care's Ills" by David M. Cutler and J. Bradford DeLong:

Every other North Atlantic country spends less than half what we spend on medicine. Every other North Atlantic country is healthier than America.

This extraordinary gap--between how much we spend on health care and what we get for it--is not because our doctors, nurses and pharmacists are unskilled or undedicated. On the contrary, they are the best in the world. But they are embedded in a poorly designed system that gives us low value for our money.

Taking the long view, the inefficiency of our health system is the biggest threat to economic growth over the next two decades--bigger, even, than the current financial crisis. The doubling of health insurance premiums since 2000 has forced employers to choose between cutting wages, cutting benefits and hiring fewer workers. The result is lost profits and lost wages, in addition to pointless risk, insecurity and a flood of personal bankruptcies. Without serious changes, this problem will only get worse.

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama wants to address the health care crisis head-on. Like Franklin Roosevelt, who faced equally large challenges, Obama will try many strategies and be guided by results, not predetermined ideological conviction.

Here's their take on McCain's half-assed sickness plan:

By contrast, Republican presidential nominee John McCain believes that the central problem in health care is that people have too much insurance and, because of it, consume too much medical care. McCain seeks to reform the health care system by taxing and punishing businesses that offer employer-sponsored insurance. Once they are forced to drop coverage, he holds, their workers will find themselves in the non-group health insurance market, where they will buy less generous plans and go to the doctor less often. Modest tax credits would help some, but nowhere near all, of the uninsured afford coverage.

We are skeptical of the value of McCain's plan for three reasons. First, the tax increase McCain proposes and the resulting dislocations it creates are the last thing American business needs now, when it's in the midst of a severe economic crisis. Second, the non-group market is nowhere near as rosy as McCain makes it out to be. People who buy insurance in that market now are risk rated, see their pre-existing conditions excluded from coverage or priced higher and are never secure in their coverage. The McCain plan would amplify, not fix, these problems.

Third, the McCain health plan has a huge financing hole--between $1 and $2 trillion over the next decade. Only the most draconian Medicare and Medicaid cuts would make the plan work. But such cuts would be devastating for the very providers that are needed to make health reform work.

And the conclusion:

It is clear to us that Barack Obama's health care reform plan is much better for the country, and much more likely to be successful, than John McCain's.

The whole article is worth a read: http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/10/27/obama-healthcare-reform-oped-cx_dmc_bd_1028cutlerdelong.html