A Better Counternarrative On The Health Care Cost Problem

To add to Shawn's point, it's very good that most left-leaning fiscal policy people are keeping their distance from the Brookings-Heritage joint campaign to destroy the welfare state. But these folks haven't advanced the compelling counter-narrative about health care costs coming out of CBO. Here's what CBO thinks will reduce health care costs:

The evidence suggests that efficiency gains in the health care system are possible: Spending in high-spending regions could be reduced without producing worse outcomes, on average, or reductions in the quality of care. Policies that reduce spending in high-spending areas, however, will not necessarily lead to increased efficiency unless the reductions target ineffective or harmful treatments. The report briefly explores policy options that could reduce geographic variation, including:

* Increasing the “bundling” of services in payments to providers (such as those that have been implemented in the Medicare program for payment for hospitals), which could help to curb current incentives to provide more intensive services that produce only modest or no improvement in health.
* Enhance incentives to provide care consistent with accepted guidelines for low-cost, highly effective care, thus helping to change patterns of medical practice in places that now are characterized by lower-quality, higher-cost care.
* Generate more information about variations in practice patterns and the relative cost-effectiveness of different procedures for different populations as a way to help reorient inefficient practice patterns toward greater efficiency, especially if greater oversight or changed financial incentives led to increased pressure to use this sort of information.

Translation: make health care worth the price America's paying, and get rid of the bad practices and treatments that are gouging consumers, employers and the public.