All Things in Moderation

Lapsed R Bruce Bartlett says government can do it better.  Hmmm.

America
The folly at the heart of the US healthcare debate

America is the only developed country that does not offer some form of national health insurance to all its citizens.

Those over the age of 65 have coverage through Medicare and the poor are covered through Medicaid, both established in 1965. Those who are neither poor nor old are expected to obtain their own health insurance or get a job that provides coverage. The federal government does subsidise private insurance through the tax code by allowing its cost to be excluded or deducted from taxable income. This reduces federal revenues by some $180bn per year.

In 2009, the Obama administration put forward a plan for extending health insurance to those who did not have it through an employer, those who could not afford it and those who could not obtain coverage due to a pre-existing medical condition. A complex system of subsidies was established to make coverage affordable to everyone and a mandate was put into place requiring people to get coverage or else pay a fine.

The mandate is by far the most controversial element of the Affordable Care Act. Its rationale is that insurance companies cannot be forced to cover those with pre-existing conditions without it, or else people will simply wait until they are sick before buying health insurance. Nevertheless, many Republicans view the mandate as an unconstitutional intrusion into the economy and they have brought a case before the Supreme Court to declare the legislation null and void for that reason. Court watchers believe the case could go either way, with a final decision expected just before the election in November.

Exactly what would replace the Affordable Care Act if it is found unconstitutional is a mystery. The Obama administration appears to have no back-up plan and Republicans have steadfastly refused to offer any proposal for expanding health coverage. One problem is that before Barack Obama became president, Republicans were the primary supporters of an individual mandate, viewing it is as a more market-oriented way of expanding health coverage without a completely government-run health system. Indeed, Mitt Romney, the likely Republican presidential nominee, established a healthcare system in Massachusetts, where he was governor, that is virtually identical to the national system created by Mr Obama.

Simultaneously, Republicans are keen to cut spending for Medicare and Medicaid, because they are among the most rapidly expanding government spending programmes. A plan supported by Republicans in the House of Representatives would effectively privatise Medicare, giving the elderly a government voucher to buy insurance or health services, in lieu of the pay-for-service system that exists now. Medicaid would be devolved to the states.

What neither party has made any effort to grapple with is the extraordinarily high cost of health, public and private. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the US spends more of its gross domestic product on health than any other country by a large margin. Americans spent 17.4 per cent of gross domestic product on health in 2009 – almost half of it came from government – versus 12 per cent of GDP or less in other major economies. Britain spends 9.8 per cent of GDP on health, almost all of it through the public sector. The total government outlay is almost exactly the same in the US and the UK at 8.2 per cent of GDP. This suggests that for no more than the US government spends on health now, Americans could have universal coverage and a healthcare system no worse than the British.

However, the option of a completely government-run health system was never seriously considered in the US when the Affordable Care Act was debated in 2009. Americans are too convinced that everything government does is less efficient and costs more than if the private sector does it. The fact that this is obviously wrong in the case of healthcare has never penetrated the public consciousness.

At the moment, everyone is waiting for the Supreme Court to speak before moving forward on any serious new health reform plan. Whichever way the court rules, it is likely to give some push to further action next year regardless of the election outcome. Moreover, the growing governmental cost of Medicare and Medicaid is something that has to be addressed if there is any hope of stabilising the national finances. That alone would be an impetus for action even if the Affordable Care Act had never been enacted.

The writer is a former senior economist at the White House, US Congress and Treasury. He is author of ‘The Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform – Why We Need It and What It Will Take’

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