Eli,
I'd like to take a step back from your quiz, and ask a more basic question: Who is responsible for my health care? You or me? If it's me, then does it really matter if the decisions of millions of individuals result in health care consuming 17% of GDP?
Every day I wake up and I decide what I'm going to eat. No one tells me what to eat. No one forces me to enroll in FoodCare, when I'm 65. Somehow, my decision on what to eat is satisfied by the thousands of food vendors I pass every day.
When I want to buy a car, no one tells me what car to buy. When I'm 65 I'm not forced to enroll in AutoCare to purchase my cars. Somehow, my decision on what car to buy is satisfied by the hundreds of options offered by the global auto industry.
When I want to buy a house, no one tells me what house to buy. When I'm 65 I'm not forced to enroll in a government program, HomeCare, to manage my purchases. Somehow my decision on what house to buy is satisfied by the thousands, or millions, or options I have to buy a house.
If you were to tell me, "Bill, from now on, whenever you buy groceries, or a car, or a house, the federal government is going to have a direct say on where you buy and what you buy," I would look at you like you had grown a second head.
My view on this issue is health care costs have increased at a rate much higher than inflation for one very simple reason: it's underpriced to most consumers so they overspend. The Federal government has been the proximate cause of this under pricing via tax deductions of health care premiums, Medicare and Medicaid.
We are in total agreement that Medicare and Medicaid spending is on a unsustainable trajectory. That is why it won't continue. Your solution is to involve the government even more in the decision making. From my perspective, I think it is mis-guided to involve the government even deeper into the health care/insurance market, when its policies are responsible for the spending trajectory in the first place.
Bill.
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