Today, Sunday, March 21, 2010, the House passed the health care bill. This is a historic day…whether for good or for bad depends on your point of view.
Some of my previous posts on health reform can be found here, here, here, here and many other places. My basic opinion was that health reform is good in that it greatly increases coverage in the U.S. What it doesn’t do, however, is control cost. If further steps are not taken in the future, health insurance will take up a larger and larger share out of your paycheck either through increased employer premiums and/or increased taxes.
Other opinions:
- The Economist: Although very expensive, they support reform because it expands coverage.
- N.Y. Times: Reform is a boon to insurers and drug companies.
- Paul Krugman: Proposals to guarantee health insurance are often controversial before they go into effect, but always popular once enacted.
- Megan McArdle: Health Reform is terrifying and the tyranny of the majority.
- FoxNews: Health Reform is the biggest abuse of power Washington has ever seen.
- Health Affairs blog: On abortion and health reform.
- Mathhew Iglesias: Some things are more important than short term politics.
- Kaiser Health News: A consumer guide to health reform.
- The Fiscal Times: Will health reform’s cost savings ever come to fruition?
- Ezra Klein: Putting the bill’s cost into perspective.
The healthcare problem was always the cost, which is driven by
1) The cost of medical care,
2) Usage of medical services
3) Law Suits, and
4) Taxes and administration.
This bill does nothing to address ANY of those costs except to cut medicare rates by 41% over 10 years. Do you think docs will continue to work for a 41% pay cut? I don’t think so!
We don’t need change, we need solutions, and solutions can only be developed by American business, not by congress. MediBid has such solutions, you simply register for an account, post your medical request, and before you know it you’re shopping for healthcare across state lines. MediBid creates competition among medical providers which does not exist in today’s system of price fixing by Medicare and the AMA.
Simple procedure, amazing result.
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