For once the mainstream media was not entirely snowed by the Obama administration’s dog-and-pony show. The subject was healthcare “savings” and everyone from the AMA to major insurers to drug companies pledged to do their part. The only thing missing was any reasonable explanation for how they’d do so. And the MSM figured it out.
The A.P. reported:
There’s no detail on how the savings pledge would be enforced. And, critically, the promised savings in private health care costs would accrue to society as a whole, not just the federal government. That’s a crucial distinction because specific federal savings are needed to help pay for the cost of expanding coverage.
Costs have emerged as the most serious obstacle to Obama’s plan. The estimated federal costs range from $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion over 10 years, and so far Obama has only spelled out how to get about half of that.
McClatchy observed:
President Barack Obama on Monday called a pledge by health industry groups to shave $2 trillion from rising costs “a watershed event” in a years-long campaign to make coverage available to all Americans. But industry experts said that voluntary commitment won’t mean much unless Congress requires some of the cost-containment mechanisms by law.
And The Hill explained that the so-called reforms weren’t enforceable able “to offset the $1 trillion-plus expected cost of healthcare reform legislation because Congress only considers the impact on the federal budget, not the entire economy.”
Meanwhile, conservatives were merciless: calling the whole charade “silly” and asking, “Where’s the beef?” And libertarian Megan McCardle summed up:
Obama’s health care plans are very, very expensive, and they mean higher taxes for everyone, not just that elusive klatch of greedy fools who are not in the 95% of working families now allegedly slated for stable or lower taxes. Otherwise, how could Obama hope to pay for it? I think we found out today: magic!
It wasn’t hard to figure out that if private players can “cut costs” they are already doing so, that none of the so-called “savings” can be tracked anymore than those jobs “saved” from the stimulus plan and that there still isn’t an identified revenue source sufficient to pay for what the Democrats want to accomplish — extending healthcare to tens of millions of people who don’t currently have it.
But it was a sign that many industry players are tripping over each other to shape the outcome of the healthcare debate, and preserve whatever piece of the pie they can as government imposes itself upon 17% of the economy. But none of this solves the big issues: Who pays? Will a “public option” put all those cheerful healthcare execs out of work? And will we see the end of a distinctive American system which has emphasized choice and innovation in favor of slow-motion descent into nationalized healthcare and rationing?
So long as the politicians pretend all of this will pay for itself — like some sort of giant perpetual motion machine which runs on its own energy — you know they haven’t gotten down to hard choices. At the end of the day, if the government is going to insist on a government-centric universal healthcare scheme the numbers will only add up with huge tax increases and rationed care. And no one really wants to talk about that.
