It would appear that, on health care reform, President Obama waded out into a political swamp and discovered alligators chewing on his tender parts. The popularity of his plan keeps going down, as people realize what government will have to do to keep the costs of health care down.
Very simply, the main thing government can do to make the cost of health care go down is to ration its availability, particularly to the old and terminally ill. Most developed countries have done exactly this, and their affluent elderly come here for pain-easing surgeries. Where will we (and they) go when our system becomes like theirs?
Another step government can take is to cut back spending on medical research, thus condemning some of us to deaths or disabilities we could otherwise avoid or postpone for years or decades. As they do on defense, much of the world relies on the U.S. for medical/pharmaceutical research - we do the spending and they reap the benefits, along with us. Who will do it when we don't, or will we all do without?
The one useful thing government could do to restrain medical costs is to replace the tort lawsuit system of constraining bad doctors with a system that examines alleged medical malpractice, punishes it, and awards only actual costs to those injured. This would avoid sending billions of dollars to lawyers, more billions to malpractice insurance firms, and even more billions on unnecessary tests and procedures done to protect doctors against lawsuit. Presumably this could reduce medical costs in this country by 10-15% - worthwhile but not dramatic.
The main reason we spend a lot on health is that we want to feel good, and we are willing to spend the money to do so.
