The Wrong Prescription

Sen. Coburn, M.D.

These days, in the mad dash to the final vote (or deemed "vote") on health care, there is such a superabundance of articles and commentaries on the bill currently under consideration that it is nigh impossible to keep track of it all. Moreover, many of them are littered with indecipherable minutiae and legalistic hair splitting (intentionally, I believe), making them almost impossible to puzzle out. It's difficult to find a commentary that cuts right to the chase with unambiguous language. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. has done just that, penning an exceptionally clear analysis of the problems with the current bill and what should really be done instead to fix the problem of affordability.

The fundamental problem in health care is cost. Every family knows that cost reduces access. As a nation, we spend twice as much on health care as any other industrialized country, but we aren’t any healthier as a result. A study by Thomson-Reuters shows that one in three dollars in our more than $2 trillion health care system does nothing to help people get well or prevent them from getting sick. If members of Congress focused their time and energy on allocating the health care dollars that are already in the system more efficiently—by reducing fraud and the costs associated with defensive medicine, for instance—we could lower cost and improve access overnight.

The bill before us, however, fails to do that. Instead, it builds on a broken and bankrupt system. The Senate bill will put 15 million Americans in the Medicaid program, which is bankrupting states and denying care to millions of American. Forty percent of doctors restrict access to Medicaid patients because reimbursement rates are so low. The rest of America will be funneled into the insurance industry the White House has been demonizing.

Supporters argue that the bill will save taxpayers $100 billion over 10 years, but this estimate is a sham. The numbers Congress gave to the Congressional Budget Office include 10 years of tax increases but only six years of benefits at the back end. This is unjust and deceptive Enron-style accounting. No homeowner would allow a bank to tell them they have to make mortgage payments for four years before they can move into their new home. Yet that is precisely what Congress is telling the American people.

Read the full text here.