Thanks for your comment, you pose some good questions. It’s definitely interesting what’s happening in Congress, and seeing Harry Reid go out on a limb today with his proposal for a plan with a public option (w/ states opt-out, and nobody knows what that means). I continue to hope for a good bill that will cover more people and bring costs down in the long run, and hopefully the CBO will provide their thoughts on the Senate bill soon.

As for tort reform, I think it’s obvious that democrats would rather not go down that road if they don’t have to. The CBO recently said that tort reform could save $54 billion over the next ten years. However, Democrats are going to do everything else first to get under $900 billion before angering their most loyal supporters. Were the Republicans in a similar position and say called upon to tax gun owners (or manufacturers), I suspect there would be the same kind of hesitation. That’s politics for ya!

I agree that Congress is terrible about forecasting a budget and future costs, however, I’m not sure what alternative we have. The CBO does a fairly respectable job, I think, as a bipartisan umpire that tries to call it as they see it. Given how many times the CBO has negatively scored democrat ideas this year, I would be hard-pressed to call them partisan. After all, it was the CBO that said Obama’s stimulus would do more harm than good!

On your final point, I wholeheartedly agree with you. I don’t see any way we are not going to have supply & demand issues, especially if the final bill has a public plan with rates tied to Medicare. I guess the question is, is it better for more people to have access to care, even if everybody suffers a little bit (with doctor lines or doctor shortages). I suspect you have a lot of doctors right now saying they will leave the practice, but fewer will actually do so. I hope most of our doctors practice medicine because they love to help people just as much as they love to make money.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed for something good!

Great article. I’m wondering what your current view of the most recent information on this would be.

I’ve had the same questions. A few other questions I have are:
1. Why no Tort Reform? If the current administration truly wants to show bipartisanship, they would include Tort Reform. The Republicans have been pushing for it, but the Democrats write it off. Why is that? If they want to save money, why are they so against it?
2. On your 5th point, their estimates are always off. Almost every system implemented by the Government (Democrat or Republican) is at least 3 times greater than the original estimates. The latest example would be the “Cash for Clunkers”.
3. How many doctors are looking to leave the health care industry if the bill passes? My allergy doctor (don’t know the scientific term) said that he will go to law school if the bill passes, and he knows several others that will do something similar.

-Steven Gardner