CBO Proving to be an "Obstacle" to Health Care Reform--I Hope They Don't Cave!
Looks like it's "in season" for shooting the messenger up on Capitol Hill!
Senate Finance Chair Max Baucus was heard to complain this week about that pesky Congressional Budget Office (CBO) saying that, "The slight challenge we have is getting numbers and estimates from CBO,“ he went on, "Otherwise, health care reform is in jeopardy. The learning curve for all of us is fairly steep."
Well Senator, perhaps you missed the CBO's December report outlining 150 options for reform and the CBOs pricing of each.
There are really two problems here for eager health care reformers:
- The CBO is playing it straight. Their numbers are realistic and they aren't looking the other way every time a politician, including the Senate Fianance Committee chair, would like them to price billions of savings from things like, "waste fraud and abuse."
- The CBO is the official referee for the Congress on budget matters. Their projections are the ones everyone must use to score legislation, or vote in favor of ignoring it in the light of day.
- All of the Democratic Congressional leaders, the White House, and the recent budget resolutions from the House and the Senate, all say health care reform has to be pay-go--they have to offset every new spending dollar with either cuts or revenue from somewhere else.
- The new Office of Management and Budget Director for President Obama--Peter Orszag--signed that December document as the then CBO director. Kind of hard to say the CBO doesn't know what they are talking about.
And I am glad they have.
In my mind, health care reform means fixing the system so we stop spending/wasting so much more than every other industrial nation on health care thereby making our system more affordable and effective.
If the CBO just rolls over and lets Congress make up excuses just to spend more for health care we will not have reform--we will only have a bigger fiscal disaster on our hands. How do you reform entitlements by pretending?
Oh, that pesky CBO!
Perhaps this December post on the CBO's scoring of 150 health care reform options applies to Senator Baucus: CBO to Health Care Reformers: Naive Policy Makers Need Not Apply
4 comments:
Well, I must look up those 150analyses to see what the CBO had to say about the cost effectiveness of single payer. Then again, I could just read David Himmelstein's recent testimony before Congress.
The anti-public option politicians and the pro-market pals don't want money-saving ideas. They are hoping someone will come up with fancy mathematical footwork to justify overriding the opinion of brilliant economists and the majority of the general public. I too hope the CBO doesn't cave!
Our businesses can no longer afford the employer-based system. Our economy can no longer afford subvening the private insuers. To say nothing of the plight of the uninsured and the 41 percent of Americans who are burdened by medical debt.
Only the implementation of a single payer system will allow us to cover everyone with a quality non-skimpy plan, and control costs going forward.
If the health care issue is to be resolved, there must be a complete paradigm shift. We as doctors cannot be piece workers. A private government regulated system must be initiated. Where true health preservation care not disease treatment is the norm. Unless these principles are initiated the system will be overburdened with fraud and legal interferences.
Dr Bernard M. Kruger
I would disagree that one payer is the only way to control costs. If a more market-aligned structure was put into place (today's patchwork system is *not* a market-based HC system -- too much regulatory interference and influence-buying by the major stakeholders, and consumers have no idea what they spend on HC or what they receive for it). When we take advantage of having the smartest consumers on the planet (not being arrogant here, just referring to the choices US consumers have to sift through in their everyday lives) and empower them to make informed decisions, and have doctors actually incented to respond to patients and *not* payers, and finally reform the legal aspects of healthcare (i.e. get your doctor to advise you based on what he personally would do, not would he has to tell you to cover his backside, legally) then we will start to see lower and sustainable cost trends.
How accurate is CBO scoring? Surely someone somewhere has krpt track of CBO scores and compared them to the later reality . . .
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