The CATO Institute has just published an 18-page analysis of current legislative initiatives in Congress. Entitled, “Halfway to Where? Answering the Key Questions of Health Care Reform“, it includes the following observations.
Under all three proposed bills, millions of Americans would not be able to keep their current coverage.
All three bills contain an individual mandate, a legal requirement that every American obtain adequate health insurance coverage.
As with the individual mandate, employer-provided policies must meet the government’s designated minimum benefit requirements.
Since the rules for HSAs require that they be accompanied by a high deductible plan, the result would be to end HSAs.
Under one scenario, 89.5 million workers would be forced into the government plan.
Under the House bill, physician income would decline by $13.4 billion in the first year alone, a decline of 6.3 percent or almost $20,000 per physician.
Despite promises being made today, taxes will eventually have to be raised for the middle class.
Using the 75-year actuarial period that the government applies to other entitlement programs … the net present value of the program’s unfunded liabilities would exceed $9.2 trillion.
National health care systems in other countries use comparative effectiveness research as the basis for rationing. [This is supported by real world experience.]
In the long run, the only way to spend less on health care is to consume less health care.
While the bills contain no direct provisions for rationing care, they nonetheless
set the stage for government rationing and interference with how doctors practice medicine.
Under all the current versions of health reform, Americans will end up paying more and getting less.