Weighing the costs of health care
Yet another health care reform proposal is floating around Congress, but the Congressional Budget Office has made it clear that these plans won't be cheap and they may not be enough. Tamara Keith reports.
Senate Banking Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), talks about health care reform as Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), listens in Washington, D.C. (Robert Giroux/Getty Images)
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KAI RYSSDAL:House Democrats unveiled their version of how to fix the health care system today. That'd make it the third or maybe it's the fifth major plan floating around Capitol Hill. It's easy to lose track. What is not so easy to miss though are the price tags the plans carry. For all the talk of reform in Washington lately, the Congressional Budget Office made it clear earlier this week that the talk is not going to be cheap and the coverage everybody's talking is not going to be enough. Tamara Keith explains.
Tamara Keith: The discussion on Capitol Hill has focused almost entirely on health insurance: How to cover the millions who are now uninsured, whether to require employers to provide it, whether to create a new government insurance plan.
Charles Rangel of New York staked out the position of House Democrats this afternoon.
Charles Rangel: Is this going to bring down the cost of health insurance? You bet your sweet life. I can't wait to talk to talk to anybody that's fighting against this public health insurance programs.
But you haven't heard much from Capitol Hill about health care this week. Most the talk has been about how expensive insurance is and not about why health care costs so much.
This is surprising because cutting the cost of medical care is a priority for the Obama administration. A recent New Yorker article has been required reading at the White House. It explores the reasons health spending in one Texas city, McAllen, is higher than almost anywhere else, and people there aren't any healthier.
Peter Orzag is Obama's budget director.
Peter Orzag: The package overall must also include a series of steps that will help to address the McAllen problem.
Those steps include things like changing the way hospitals and doctors are paid, rewarding quality of care rather than quantity. Orzag says legislation can address these issues within Medicare, which influences the entire industry.
Orzag: They are the most auspicious set of proposals that we have to get towards a health care system that in which best practices aren't occurring only in isolated parts of the U.S., but are instead occurring throughout the U.S.
In Washington, I'm Tamara Keith for Marketplace.
Comments
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From Ann Arbor, MI, 06/21/2009
Many thanks to Marketplace's Kai Ryssdal for sending a link to his June 2 interview with Atul Gawande, author of the "New Yorker" article "everyone" is quoting.
On second reading I see that Dr. Gawande did refer to El Paso's Medicare spending, not its overall spending, at $7,500, in 2006. But this goes to my earlier comment, and to Catherine’s comment, the news media should do a better job of getting a complete picture to the public. Gawande put Rochester, Minn. at $6,688, and Grand Junction, Colorado, at about a third if McAllen’s (about $5,000). The average (mean) for Medicare enrollee in 2006 was $9,305. Thus in some areas spending is obviously less, others more, sometimes much more; that’s how you get an average. I had hoped when I originally looked up Dr. Gawande’s article that it would have charts and graphs that showed the range of costs for cities, that would show the distribution (the median must be significantly less than the average), and that would show how many areas are at the extremes. It didn’t; I hope someone else’s does.
From San Antonio, TX, 06/20/2009
I want to know how much is spent on health care in U.S. every year. How much of that is current veteran care, care for veterans from earlier wars, medicare, medicaid, private insurance, how much does medicare pay private companies to manage medicare? What is the difference between what is paid for emergency room care as opposed to going to the primary care physician in non-ememgency situations? How can private insurers and drug companies complain about their profits when they seem to have a great deal to spend on campaigns and lobbying? I would like to see all the figures and I would like Congress to look at them too. I can not believe Universal coverage could cost any more than what is being spent now.
From Colorado Springs, CO, 06/19/2009
To show our support for "public option" or single payer system, I suggest someone start a 51 million people march or more on a selected day this summer.
51 million is only one million people per state plus one district. That is not too much ot ask for.
America, we love you.
Please do the right thing.
06/19/2009
If the republicans want to play the "let the market determine the price" game, then I say we play ball.
Dramatically increase the number of foreign doctors immigrating to the US. Special HB-1 Visas just for them. Build two new Med schools per year. Increase hospitals and clinics.
This will create jobs, reduce cost, reduce wait time, and improve care. People will then fly to the US for care instead of flying to New Zealand.
From Ann Arbor, MI, 06/19/2009
I am getting tres tired of hearing about McAllen without some context.
Will some reporter please, PLEASE, give useful comparison information? And I don't mean McAllen's apples vs. Mayo's oranges. Pick maybe ten cities across the board for Medicare costs and report the range. OK, McAllen is high, but what is low -- 90% of McAllen or 10% of McAllen?
Until we hear that information we're just being propagandized
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