From Keith Hennessey, Understanding The New Health Care Reconciliation Bill. A good site to get caught up.
Megan McArdle sounds dejected: First Thoughts On The CBO Score. Some interesting comments.
Paul Krugman back in 2006 at the NYT: The Health-Care Crisis And What To Do About It. Krugman offers his vision of what to do to contain rising costs due to vast inefficiencies, and what has caused the inefficiencies:
“First is the increasingly rapid unraveling of employer- based health insurance. Second is the plight of Medicaid, an increasingly crucial program that is under both fiscal and political attack. Third is the long-term problem of the federal government’s solvency, which is, as we’ll explain, largely a problem of health care costs.”
Of course, “free market ideology” and politics are getting in the way of what Krugman argues is the only effective solution: these separate problems need comprehensive reform, and the government is the only entity capable of delivering it.
Of course, we’ll still have poor people without much/any access, a need for rationing (never enough money, always too much need), waste, inefficient spending due to self-interest etc as well as what I think Krugman underestimates as the potential for simple corruption, government inefficiency, and the dangers of tying political interests to so much money and human need (the innovation that will be lost). He doesn’t spend much time discussing the downsides.
But, where is there a counter-vision by a fiscal conservative?
Lesson to Republicans: plan ahead. Clinton also had a pretty deep, statesman-like vision, and tried (Hilary) to get this rolling some time ago…so here we are.
Update: A reader sent this link to the Heritage Foundation. It’s a start. If you have other links, fell free to send them in.
Also On This Site: From Youtube Via Althouse-’Paul Ryan: Hiding Spending Doesn’t Reduce Spending’
The most knowledgable articles I’ve read that make the case for some government involvement are here:
Atul Gawande At The New Yorker: ‘The Cost Conundrum Persists’
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