Here Comes The Health Care Reform Bills

This article in the New York Times caught my eye:

Without waiting for President-elect Barack Obama, Senator Max Baucus, the chairman of the Finance Committee, will unveil a detailed blueprint on Wednesday to guarantee health insurance for all Americans by facilitating sales of private insurance, expanding Medicaid and Medicare, and requiring most employers to provide or pay for health benefits. […]

“Every American has a right to affordable, high-quality health care,” Mr. Baucus said. “Americans cannot wait any longer.” Far from being a distraction from efforts to revive the economy, he said, “health reform is an essential part of restoring America’s economy and maintaining our competitiveness.”

I agree that the current mess that we have now needs improvement… but I’m not holding my breath on Congress undertaking the unpleasant, but necessary tasks of addressing health care cost inflation, inefficiencies and waste in the system, actually defining what level of care is a “right”, and figuring out how the heck such changes will be paid for, and by whom.

I think back to the debate on expanding Medicare to cover prescription benefits…where the debate quickly devolved to “lets do it and figure out how to pay for it later”.  As a result, Medicare’s trust fund has been tapped, and the federal government is having to increase borrowing to redeem the IOU’s that comprise the account.

Ensuring that everyone has access to adequate health care is an admirable goal.  But I lack confidence in Congress’ willingness to tackle the hard questions behind the scenes of that goal, before the answers are dictated by inadequately-thought-through design and economic realities.