This is a devastating portrait. At times, the U.S. health care system delivers the worst of both worlds: pay more, get less. Unfortunately, the message isn’t new. America’s fragmented and overspecialized health system maximizes returns to providers — doctors, hospitals, drug companies — but not to society. Fee-for-service reimbursement allows providers to reconcile their ethical duty (more care for patients) and economic self-interest (higher incomes). The more they do, the more they earn. Restraints are few, because patients and providers both resist limits on their choices. Government regulators and private insurers are too weak to control costs.
Countless thousands of conscientious doctors provide most Americans with good care and some with superb care. But the system needs a fundamental overhaul to deliver more value for money. There are essentially two ways to do this.
Robert J. Samuelson
Samuelson writes a weekly column on economics.
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One is a voucher system that, through tax credits and fixed Medicare premium subsidies, would allow patients to shop for the best health plan. Competition, the theory goes, would force hospitals and doctors to restructure the delivery system; health plans would compete on the basis of price and quality.
The other way is a government-run, single-payer system that would — somehow — include strict budget limits on doctors, hospitals and other providers. Lower administrative costs alone wouldn’t provide enough savings to control overall spending. If open-ended reimbursement survived, so would the existing system.
What’s involved is transforming almost one-fifth of the U.S. economy. The supercommittee couldn’t do that. But it could have proposed legislation to create two teams of experts to design rival plans that would be ready for the next president. One way or another, if we don’t act, we’re surrendering our future to runaway health spending.
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