Opponents of health care reform claim that the current plans represent a government take over of heath care. Ezra Klein looks at the Congressional Budget Office’s evaluation of the Senate Finance Committee proposal:
The verdict? It will look a lot like our old health-care system.
Unless you’re uninsured, or on the individual market, this bill is not expected to affect you. CBO estimates that 29 million Americans who would’ve otherwise been uninsured will be covered. That’s a very big deal. Five million Americans who would otherwise have been left to the individual market will find a better option. And 3 million Americans who would’ve otherwise been in employer-based health insurance will be on the exchanges or, in some cases, on Medicaid. The insurance exchanges are projected to serve 23 million people come 2019, and 18 million of the members will be low-income and on subsidies.
That leaves 245 million non-elderly Americans who will pretty much be in the exact place they would’ve been otherwise. As for the elderly, the CBO doesn’t include them because they’re on Medicare. They, too, will be where they otherwise would’ve been.
This is hardly the radical change that opponents claim. As an owner of a small business this matters more to me than it does to the vast majority of people who are protesting against health care reform. I sure hope that they go beyond the current proposal and also give us the choice of a public option.
The key finding in the Congressional Budget Office report is that this would reduce the deficit by $81 billion over the next decade. While reducing the deficit is a good thing (most recently only seen under a Democratic president), I hope we don’t place this over doing health care reform right. Eliminating wasteful government spending (like the subsidies given by George Bush to the insurance companies in Medicare Advantage plans) is a good thing, but sometimes we really do benefit by spending more government money. I’d prefer that the deficit not be reduced as much so that greater assistance can be given to individuals to purchase health care coverage, and to avoid needing to expand coverage by placing people in Medicaid as opposed to real insurance plans.