Christopher
Active Member
- Aug 7, 2009
- 569
- 75
"government becoming involved in health care over the years has been a large reason for cost increases in health care." Unsupportable assertion. "Why would we want a public option as part of the reform when that is the case?" That is not the case, and a two-tier system in Australia gives better care, accessible to all, at a far less cost.
Actually, it is supported by the CBO where I got the information (bold emphasis added below). Technological Change and the Growth of Health Care Spending
Changes in Third-Party Payment. More generous third-party paymentfrom the creation of Medicare and Medicaid and subsequent changes to these programs, for exampleeffectively reduced the average out-of-pocket cost of health care over the past several decades, leading to higher health care expenditures. As a share of all per capita spending on personal health care, consumers out-of-pocket costs have fallen sharply, from 52 percent in 1965 to 15 percent in 2005 (see Figure 6). Empirical analyses suggest that under an assumption of no change in medical technology, the expansion of insurance coverage can account for 10 percent to 13 percent of the long-term rise in health care spending (see Table 2). That expansion, in turn, could have had a larger effect on spending by hastening the adoption of cost-increasing new technologies.8
Not to mention the cost shifting that has occurred and increased private health insurance because of Medicare and Medicaid.
You still did not answer my question.