In an earlier post, I ridiculed the defense of the so called "public option" (leftie-speak for government option) because they compared it to AMTRAK, and other government failures. However, there is already a direct and relevant comparison; Medicare and Medicaid spending on health care has risen faster than private sector spending by more than 34% according to a new study from the Pacific Research Institute.
From the article:
H/T: Weasel ZippersAcross nearly four decades, Medicare's costs have risen more than one-third more, per patient, than the combined costs of all health care nationwide apart from Medicare and Medicaid. This is true even when viewing Medicare's costs in a charitable light.
President Obama asserts that creating a Medicare-like "public option" is the way to slow the rising costs of health care. Experience shows the opposite, that costs have risen faster under government-run care. As Benjamin Franklin and George Mason argued at the Constitutional Convention, let's defer to "experience, the best of all tests."
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Medicare, Medicaid, Emergency room policy, and lack of tort reform (as blocked by the most powerful lobby on the Hill, trial lawyers) has already backstopped, crippled and socialized our health care industry.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we need to screw it up all the way before we wake up. I can't see Republicans doing much about it.