Medicare a Bad Precedent for Government Health Plans?

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/06/17/Health_Care_Reform_Long-Term_Fiscal_Impact

Former Bush Administration official James Capretta lists some obstacles to successful government health care reform. He gives Medicare as an example of why costs have been driven so high.

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What are the fiscal risks of health care reform? What can be done to minimize the strain on the federal budget from increasing health care costs? New subsidies for health insurance can only exacerbate the budgetary shortfalls. Hudson Visiting Fellow Hanns Kuttner has prepared a new paper that assesses the long-term fiscal risk from health care reform and the tools available for managing that risk.

Joining Kuttner to discuss his paper -- and other questions on health care reform -- were James C. Capretta, Fellow in the Economics and Ethics Program of the Ethics and Public Policy Center; Alice M. Rivlin, Senior Fellow, Metropolitan Studies, Economic Studies and Greater Washington Research at the Brookings Institution; C. Eugene Steuerle, Vice President of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation; and Paul Van de Water, Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. - Hudson Institute

James C. Capretta is a Fellow in the Economics and Ethics Program of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is also a contributing editor to EPPC's journal The New Atlantis, and the author of the health care policy blog Diagnosis.

From January 2001 to May 2004, Mr. Capretta served as the Bush Administration's top budget official for health care, Social Security and pensions, education, and labor policy. He was the lead official in the Office of Management and Budget for all aspects of Medicare and Medicaid reform policy development and implementation as well as for the development of the President's other important domestic policy initiatives in education and labor.

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[wervasdeferens]

Capretta actually makes some valid points and solutions.

My question is why hasn't the GOP done anything about health care previously? While they were in power the costs of health care doubled. These higher costs have affected job creation,state and federal budget deficits and overall economic decline.

Relying on the "Free Market" to solve everything means you do nothing.

Doing nothing has been the GOP's albatross.

[Bobbiethejean]

Yet funnily enough, no politician in their right mind would dare even hint at taking away medicare. Why? Because the people love it. It may be imperfect but the people have spoken.

[Nintendomanwill]

@AdamHeilbrun

The current healthcare system unfairly benefits insurance companies BECAUSE of government, they subsidise companies driving up costs and killing competition, they MANDATE insurance packages which is unbelievably destructive of choice and competition and market forces, and worst of all they delineate various fixed packages in terms of in which of the 50 states you live...so the government has given companies the power to extort through lack of choice. Nice one, government!

[jayseah1932]

This guy doesn't use Medicare, has never used it, so knows nothing about how well it works. I've been using it for 12 years, and have had some very serious medical problems dealtt with, and they have handled them very well. Guys like these need to just shut up whaen they haven't had any participation.

[AdamHeilbrun]

Among the other flaws in Capretta's argument is that he ignores the fact that 1/3 of our health care dollars are now being gobbled up by the insurance industry which provides no healthcare services whatsoever - only massive red tape. Dump them and we can fund decent health care for all, just as Medicare now does for seniors.

[MrPlaid81]

Former Bush Administration official James Capretta

Give me a BREAK!!!

[allgoo19]

Former Bush Administration official James Capretta

Who else can make more biased opinion?

[offsprng46]

So, the whole notion that the only thing the government can do is to dictate prices is a total lie. What government can and should do is to go out and physically MAKE SAVINGS - authorize credit for the capital and educational investments which will increase physical supply and drive down costs. This worked spectacularly well under the New Deal and Late New Deal, and it will work again if undertaken.

[offsprng46]

This guy is a total incompetent; he was in the Bush administration, after all. The FACT - which this little faggot, as well as the right-wing anarchists ("libertarians") - choose to ignore is that the federal government created the world's best public health care system under the Hill-Burton Act (look it up), which was designed not to micro-manage providers, but to build up the physical plant of the health care system. Since the Nazi Dick Nixon though, we've been stuck with the HMO parasites.

[Mastikator]

Here's health-care reform I'd support:

Disband the AMA and legally protected terms.

Disband the regulation institutions.

End the legal cartels on medicine. End the monopoly.

Historically the free market is the only place where high quality, affordable goods and services emerge.

It can not be dictated or mandated by some top-down official. It can only emerge.

[thesparitan]

lol haha i check your profile stanley kubrick what the f man thats my favorite director

and you stole all my favorites and my political philosophy

i cant believe how many anrachist i see these days its fucking awesome dude

way to go i have never seen so many radicals in my life

PARECON

[thesparitan]

lol damm