This week's editorial is about the fantastic notion that spending more money to subsidize health insurance for millions of Americans will somehow save the government money in the long run. We neglected to mention this fascinating analysis of the House health bill by Richard Foster, the chief actuary of HHS's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Among Foster's many interesting conclusions:
(a) "Total national health expenditures in the U.S. during the 2010-2019 would increase by about 0.8 percent. The additional demand for health services could be difficut to meet initially with existing health provider resources and could lead to price increases, cost-shifting, and/or changes in providers' willingness to treat patients with low-reimbursement health coverage."
(b) "With the exception of the proposed reductions in Medicare payment updates for institutional providers, the provisions of HR 3962 would not have a significant impact on future health care cost growth rates. In addition, the longer-term viability of the Medicare update reductions is doubtful."
Of course, as the recent "Doc Fix" episode illustrates, the short-term viability of the Medicare update reductions is pretty doubtful, too.
Milton Friedman famously said that there's no such thing as a free lunch. There's no such thing as free health care, either.
