There is a simple explanation for why American health care costs so much more than health care in any other country: because we pay so much more for each unit of care. As Halvorson explained, and academics and consultancies have repeatedly confirmed, if you leave everything else the same -- the volume of procedures, the days we spend in the hospital, the number of surgeries we need -- but plug in the prices Canadians pay, our health-care spending falls by about 50 percent.
In other countries, governments set the rates that will be paid for different treatments and drugs, even when private insurers are doing the actual purchasing. In our country, the government doesn't set those rates for private insurers, which is why the prices paid by Medicare, as you'll see on some of these graphs, are much lower than those paid by private insurers.
I have heard it argued that this proves the market doesn't work when Health Care is involved, but really doesn't this prove that it does? At the point that people (or insurance companies) begin to refuse to pay then prices will begin to come down. It's like charging $8.00 for a beer at a baseball game. If now one buys then the price will come down. Some believe that because consumers are a "captive marke"t that keeps the free market from taking hold. I think that anytime there is an artificially inflated price there is an opportunity for a motivated entrepreneur to move in and undercut prices. Lets be honest most minor illness could be treated by somebody with training equivalent to a Navy Independent Duty Corpsman or a Paramedic. The medical establishment has a vested interest in preventing that. That is an avenue of competition that is blocked artificially. If it was opened and every Walmart had a small clinic with an IDC in it then the cost of medical care would plummet.
Hot Air - Neil Cavuto goes after Sheperd Smith - About time.
Ace and Betsy - The Golden State isn't worth it - Normally I would credit one or the other but I like this story so much both get credit.
Texas has usurped the leadership position that, decades ago, belonged to California. Today California is in decline, likely irreversibly so. William Voegeli draws the sad but instructive comparison in the Los Angeles Times:
In America's federal system, some states, such as California, offer residents a "package deal" that bundles numerous and ambitious public benefits with the high taxes needed to pay for them. Other states, such as Texas, offer packages combining modest benefits and low taxes. These alternatives, of course, define the basic argument between liberals and conservatives over what it means to get the size and scope of government right. ...
California and Texas are not perfect representatives of the alternative deals, but they come close. Overall, the Census Bureau's latest data show that state and local government expenditures for all purposes in 2005-06 were 46.8% higher in California than in Texas: $10,070 per person compared with $6,858. ...
But those higher taxes in California must be going somewhere. Why aren't they benefiting those many thousands of citizens who are leaving the state for greener pastures?
In what respects, then, does California "excel"? California's state and local government employees were the best compensated in America, according to the Census Bureau data for 2006. And the latest posting on the website of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility shows 9,223 former civil servants and educators receiving pensions worth more than $100,000 a year from California's public retirement funds. The "dues" paid by taxpayers in order to belong to Club California purchase benefits that, increasingly, are enjoyed by the staff instead of the members.
And just think California is the model for the nation.
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