We've all heard this definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result.
Here, in a nutshell, is the insanity of the current U.S. health care debate:
1. Medicare, the government's single-payer wealth redistribution health care program, is quickly going bankrupt. No one disputes this fact.
2. When President Obama refers to "cutting costs of healthcare," he is referring to cutting the Medicare budget. Period. No increased efficiencies, no improved services, no reduced market-clearing prices. No, cutting costs refers to reducing the fraction of the U.S. government's tax collections devoted to Medicare.
3. The new Health Care Plan is fundamentally a new Medicare program. Let's call is Medicare 2.0.
4. Medicare 2.0 is being funded in large part by cutting the current Medicare budget item. We are supposed to ignore the fact that the funds cut from the current Medicare program will be spent on Medicare 2.0.
5. The Medicare 2.0 plan shifts as much as 25% of its (under)estimated costs (e.g. payments to physicians) to other accounts. The costs are still there; these obligations would still need to be paid by the government under the proposed legislation, but Congress is hoping the public won't "count" the shifted costs if they slap another name on them, further fostering the illusion of "lowering costs of health care."
5. Medicare 2.0 will also go bankrupt but, as a larger, more far-reaching entitlement program, the impact on the U.S. budget will be larger and more far-reaching.
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