Give Me A Break

President Bush is unveiling his new plan to reduce health care costs in America. He is proposing the following:

1) Allowing tax deductions for out of pocket expenses
2) Health Savings Account, permitting people to set aside tax free shelters for medical expenses
3) Enhancing portability

Where to begin, where to begin....

The most obvious fact of this package is that it will do nothing to restrain the growth in prices. There are simply no cost control measures evident. Conservatives will argue that they way they reduce cost is by placing more of the burden of health costs to individuals, who will therefore consume less health care in order to reduce their personal costs.

So let me get this straight. The problem with health care in America is that we have too much of it? Is that why we have 50 million uninsured, 50 million underinsured, and most unhealthy population in the industrialized world? Because people are getting too much health care?

The reality is that we don't have enough health care, for all that we spend so much on it. The way to bring down health care costs is to encourage healthy lifestyles and get people to engage in preventative care. Under the Bush plan (at best), people will defer going to the doctor until there is an emergency, when costs are the highest. Smart thinking, nimrods.

The second problem with this set of proposals is that they rely on individuals being able to set aside extra cash for future expenses, or to expect a return on their taxes. Hello! Most people without health insurance don't have any disposable income to speak of! How are they going to set aside any money for these savings accounts? And what good is a preferential tax treatment on money you can't afford to spend?

I can dismiss the portability suggestion by just pointing out that it just encourages companies to shed their privately financed health insurance, putting the entire responsibility on individuals.

This is not a serious piece of public policy. It is a mixture of campaign politics and corporate cronyism. The lack of cost controls and the (minor) public subsidies fattens the bottom line of pharmaceutical companies. The discouraging of using health care benefits insurance companies, who will be able to charge people for substandard coverage that they will never use. And the The portability proposal will allow businesses to dump their health care obligations to their workers. And the fact that Bush is proposing something with the words "health care" in it will allow the Republicans running in 2006 the ability to say that they are "doing something" about health care.

But they aren't doing something about the health care crisis. They are doing something to America's citizens. Again. Assholes.