Ezra Klein: Will Medicare -- And the Public Option -- Bankrupt Us?

[babylonsister]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/09/will_medicare_--_and_the_publi.html


Will Medicare -- And the Public Option -- Bankrupt Us?





Sen. Chuck Schumer has done a good job tying the public option to Medicare. As the argument goes, Medicare works. People like it. It holds down costs better than the private sector. It's familiar to Americans. The public option is a bit like a Medicare option (though more in John Rockefeller's amendment than in Schumer's), and why shouldn't Americans have that?

The reply from Republicans has been swift and clean: Medicare is going to bankrupt us. The program is going broke. Its projected spending will swallow up the federal budget. To allow that once is an accident. To allow it twice is pure foolishness.

They have a point. Medicare is going broke. It will bankrupt us. Case closed! Except for one thing:

So will private-sector health care.

The story here is simple. You've heard it a thousand times. Health-care costs are growing more quickly than wages or GDP growth. Much more quickly, in fact. If that trend isn't arrested, there's only one outcome: Costs will overwhelm us. That's true for Medicare and true for the rest of the health-care system.

The relevant question, then, is not whether Medicare will bankrupt us, but will it do so more quickly than private health-care insurance? The answer here, too, is simple: no. Between 1970 and 2000, annual per-enrollee spending growth was 11.1 percent for private health insurance and 9.7 percent for Medicare. Between 2000 and 2004, Medicare's costs grew 6.7 percent per person while private health insurance costs grew by 9.5 percent.

Medicare's rate of spending will bankrupt us, but more slowly than private health insurance. Which would give us more time to figure out a fix.

Graph credit: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

[MadMaddie]

1. Private Healthcare is banktrupting Americans one at a time

the industry has no care for political sides it destroys any and all individuals and famlies.

[villager]

2. "But," sayeth the Repubes, "military adventurism will of course *not* bankrupt us!"

n/t

[babylonsister]

4. Why isn't THAT elephant pointed out more? No kidding. nt

[BlooInBloo]

5. Heh indeedy.

[Ilsa]

3. Ezra, I think you mean, "Will Medicare -- And the Public Option -- Bankrupt ME and my buddies?"

Not that they'd care. They've got theirs, screw the rest of us.

[babylonsister]

6. Baloney. This guy has been writing about health care for months.

Read the article again. He's proving the rethugs are delusional and wrong. .

[Ironman3476]

7. Who in their right mind would choose the PO?

If the PO is as bad as Rush&co. say it is,how could enough people choose it to bankrupt the country? Oh,that's right,we would be FORCED into it whether we wanted in or not.Much better to be forced into a private plan we don't want.