The USA Today Editorial board wrote their view on health care: Dispute over ‘public option’ veers into fantasyland. They said this about the public option provision in the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act.
This entirely voluntary plan — that's why it's called an "option" — would bring some cost control to health care by applying government's purchasing power as leverage against medical providers and insurance companies. Yet the idea is cynically cast as a "government takeover of health care" — rhetoric worthy of the Mad Hatter.The editorial board then points out a well-known fact that the government already pays a large percentage of health care costs and the cost of inaction would lead to health care costs consuming 25% of GDP in 2025.
The dirty secret of our health care system is that it already is dependent on government or, more precisely, government waste. More than 46% of all medical service in the USA, about $1 trillion annually, is paid for directly by taxpayers. Private insurers cover 42%, and the remainder is paid out of pocket. In addition to what government pays directly, it pumps in more than $200 billion a year in tax subsidies.We encourage you to read the entire editorial and learn more about the America's Affordable Health Choices Act.
If Washington does nothing, this government role will only get a lot bigger as the population ages, providers hike prices and private coverage becomes increasingly unaffordable.
It just amazes me that the deeper we look into the issues of Health Care in the US that we trend increasingly to selling a total overhaul and continue to formally bash our current system. It seems (in my ill-informed opinion) that if we put half as much energy into tort reform as we are into junking the system. We might end up with a system we can be proud of.
I also find it interesting that even in its current state, our system is the envy of rank and file citizens of countries that currently use "socialized medicine".