What About Costs?
January 31st, 2007
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Robert J. Samuelson is right on the mony.
For decades, Americans have treated health care as if it exists in a separate economic and political world: When people need care, they should get it; costs should remain out of sight. About 60 percent of Americans receive insurance through their employers; to most workers, the full costs are unknown. The 65-and-older population and many poor people receive government insurance. Except for modest Medicare premiums and payroll taxes, costs are largely buried in federal and state budgets.
It is this segregation of health care from everything else that is now crumbling — and the various health proposals are just one sign. We see others all the time. For example, even with employer-provided insurance, workers’ average monthly premiums (which cover only part of the costs) have skyrocketed. From 1999 to 2006, they doubled, from $129 to $248.[link]
American health care is expensive and till those costs open-not hidden in federal and state budgets and employee pay checks-the case for reform would remain weak.
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