Numbers on Senate Health Care Bill Sound Promising

The initial numbers for the Senate health care reform bill sound good per Jonathan Cohn:

The Office of the Actuary for Medicare has issued its long-awaited cost estimate for the Senate’s health care reform bill. I’ve only had a few hours to digest it and talk with outside experts.* But these seem to be the main points:

The bad news: Overall, according to the estimate, we’ll be spending more on health care come 2019 than we would if we did nothing.

The not-so-bad news: The difference is tiny, in relative terms, and even smaller than it was for the House bill, which was hardly big.

The good news: The underlying trend is in the right direction. As more time passes, it’s more likely we’ll save money.

Overall, considering the value of coming closer to universal coverage and protecting those who do have coverage from losing it, to spend a modest amount more than we are now spending on health care sounds like a good deal.

1 Comment

  1. 1
    Eclectic Radical says:

    There are people who are starting to wonder if all this is going to be worth it, frustrated at the relatively small scope of the bill considering the major fight that’s been going on. I’m still in favor of whatever improvements in the system we can get. Don’t get me wrong.
     
    I am very concerned, however, about people being so burnt out on the notion of health care reform (when this is all over) that we don’t see any sustained political pressure for continued improvement and expansion of access and lowering of consumer costs.
     

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