ICYMI: Buffalo News Editorial -- Senate and House Bills Fail to Bend the Cost Curve Downard
Posted by The Campaign on November 19, 2009 at 11:05 AM
A Buffalo News editorial argues that the Senate bill fails to lower skyrocketing health care costs.
Here are a few key excerpts:
"If Americans are going to have the health care reform they urgently need, it will be because the Senate does more than the House did to control the exploding costs of care."
"But the spiraling of health care costs is the main out-and-out crisis. It threatens the health care system and the entire American economy. Without that component woven into the bill, any effort to extend coverage to the uninsured will ultimately fail, later if not sooner."
"The wordage in the House bill does not save the millions spent annually by doctors for tests and procedures to cover themselves in the event of a lawsuit. It ignores the example of states that have adopted malpractice caps. Texas, as an example, did so several years ago, and the state has had a 50 percent drop in malpractice premiums, fewer lawsuits and a sharp increase in new doctors."
"But the report [Lewin Group report] also notes that the Senate plan, as well, fails the critical test of lowering the costs of health care. Or, as the foundation put it, 'It does not bend the total health care cost curve downward as a percentage of the economy.'"
For the full article, click here.
