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Martin Feldstein - Obama's Health-Care Reform Plan Is Not the Answer
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Feldstein says that for the 85% of the people who have healthcare the Obama proposals are not a good deal. The Obama proposals mean higher taxes in the long run to pay for the $1 trillion cost of healthcare for the uninsured group over 10 years. This lower income group has no coverage despite the $300 billion Medicaid program. Feldstein says there surely must be better and less costly ways of getting this lowincome group healthcare. Raising the top income tax rate to 45% from 35%- as a result of letting the Bush tax cuts expire and adding aproposed health surcharge on higher income individuals- would actually lower revenues for the government, as it would change behavior of high income individuals in ways that lower their taxable inome. The result is higher deficits and higher taxes when even without this large deficits are projected for the future. How to slow the rapid growth in healthcare spending? The Obama plan is to cut spending on Medicare. Feldstein sees the govenment's effort aimed at reducing the amount of medical services, as reduced spending comes from fewer services, not reduced payments to providers. Will this result in enough of acost reduction to make the system work. And if the cost reductions are too heavily weighted towards reduced services and not reduced payments to providers would this result in large cuts to services to affect the quality of healthcare for the 85% who are accustomed to a different pattern of healthcare, even though it is structured to allow cost escalation. Feldstein offers no solutions to the problems of cost escalation except to suggest that the Obama plan does not really tackle the cost escalation issues directly with providers, and instead burdens the national finances to an extraordinary degree. And the need for apause and reflection.
Developing new solutions to the problem of escalating health care costs in the U.S.
01/31/2008
New solutions are being developed and new ideas being tried to bring down health care costs. In many case quality can improve at lower cost or the similiar results delivered for lower cost with some other advantages inpatient focussed healthcare that improve outcomes. Pricing of pharmaceutical products and healthcare services as the major unsolved problem in the U.S.
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The risks of "cosmetic" reform in the Obama administration's efforts, and the unsustainability of the current system in the costs and results it provides.
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The rising costs of the French system and its concept and performance. Efforts to meet rising costs and rise of the "mutuals." Healthcare in France is at about 11% of GNP compared to 16% in the USA, with 50 million uninsured in the US and 99% of 64 million people of France covered. Pricing of pharmaceutical products and healthcare services remains a major unsolved problem in the U.S.
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Martin Feldstein - Obama's Health-Care Reform Plan Is Not the Answer
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Where the money for a deficit-neutral health care plan will come from, and the environment in which each group is trying to preserve its own interests in the face of a public interest.
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The options to tax employer provided health insurance as income, to reduce tax breaks for mortgage deductions and charitable contributions for highend taxpayers, and to reduce Medicare payments, all have one common problem. Each group would like to preserve as much of the status quo as possible, and give up as least as possible.
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Failures to address problems on the housing front, especialy the problems for 15 million homeowners under water- see the links to opeds by Feldstein suggesting focus on these issues throughout 2008-2009. And the focus on health care which diverted attention from this problem and the problem facing bad loans in commercial real estate. Other problems are failure to get bank lending up for businesses. And the failure of Obama health care plans to control the increase in the nation's surging health care spending, instead increasing the deficit to unsustainable levels. Public sentiment as shown in WSJ/NBC polls confirm Feldstein's sense of the situation.
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