President Obama spends this weekly address dealing with health care and energy, with an accent on agreement reached by major stakeholders in each area. The health care agreement has garnered a lot of press, with some of the same folks who had opposed the Clinton health care initiative offering to work together to slow the unsustainable rate of increase in health care costs.(Their letter to the President is attached below). The President commented on Monday. From the New York Times:
In remarks prepared for delivery to health care providers on Monday, Mr. Obama says: “These groups are voluntarily coming together to make an unprecedented commitment. Over the next 10 years, from 2010 to 2019, they are pledging to cut the growth rate of national health care spending by 1.5 percentage points each year — an amount that’s equal to over $2 trillion.”
“Reform is not a luxury that can be postponed, but a necessity that cannot wait,” Mr. Obama says.
The President is staking plenty on an ability to finally get under control the cost of health care, which is destroying budgets and killing jobs everywhere. But even this letter only holds down “the rate of increase”. And real cost containment, which would provide tangibile relief, will be fought hard. The same NY Times story includes an observation, which I think is accurate.
In the abstract, slowing the growth of health spending is a goal on which consumers and health care providers agree. But experience shows that specific proposals touch off fierce battles among interest groups fighting to expand their share of health care money.
And that brings us to the latest David Brooks column in the Times, which agrees that Obama’s entire strategy revolves around ramping up spending in order to get health care costs under control, and via the savings achieved putting our fiscal house back in order. Brooks also agrees that some of the Obama proposals are good public policy, and point us in the right direction. But ultimately Brooks feels that the severity of the problem requires what might be politically untenable solutions, and that Obama will fail to generate the savings necessary to justify the current deficits. The title of his column “Fiscal Suicide Ahead” gives his central thesis away. From Brooks:
If you read the C.B.O. testimony and talk to enough experts, you come away with a stark conclusion: There are deep structural forces, both in Medicare and the private insurance market, that have driven the explosion in health costs. It is nearly impossible to put together a majority coalition for a bill that challenges those essential structures. Therefore, the leading proposals on Capitol Hill do not directly address the structural problems. They are a collection of worthy but speculative ideas designed to possibly mitigate their effects.
The Brooks column is a good read even if you do not agree. If you tend to agree then it could be argued that our political system, as it works today, will not allow serious cost containment on health care, ever. And then we will be stuck forever with a system that will bankrupt us as a nation.
Bill Manzi.com 
Here is the republican response give by Rep. Charles Boustany R – LA http://www.gop.gov/media/weekly-republican-address/09/05/16/weekly-republican-address
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The Republicans come up with bromides, but nowhere, not here or anywhere else, do they enunciate what a Republican program would look like. If the Republican plan is to leave things alone and hope the market sorts it all out then they will have offered up nonsense.
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Your Honor,
The Republicans may offer nonsense, but they won’t take away your freedom like the gang of empty suits trying to put this Health Care abortion together.
I challenge you to tell me how how you confirm that the ‘private sector’ will ‘save’ the 1.5% per year they promise. Please note they have already denied making the promises the president claims. And, by the way, what promises has Obama made to them?
The Massachusetts model is unsustainable and is only garnishing members because the state promised guys with guns will take you away if you don’t ‘volunteer’ to join some insurance plan. What makes you think a federal plan would be any different?
Medicare is a few years from becoming insolvent.
I don’t care what David Brooks or President Obama say, it can’t be done, programs like this are not successful (except the Tennessee Valley electrification and the military.)
I’ll give the most convincing of arguments; Because Obama does not become involved in writing law he leaves it to..(ready?)….Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. That is why his executions are awful and tens of thousand of dead people are getting stimulus checks. (Republicans had nothing to do with that.)
Nancy Pelosi writting law…God that’s scary.
Jules
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Jules,
A couple of points in response.
1)There is no guarantee on the so called savings. And the left is as suspicious of these claims as you appear to be. As far as what was actually said read the letter they sent for yourself. It is posted. How can there be dispute when they put it in writing?
2) Massachusetts model is indeed unsustainable at current rates of price growth. In fact the program itself now consumes over $8 billion of our tax dollars, and is crowding out all other spending. That is exactly the point. There is no sustainable model of health care that will work without real cost containment. Obama gets that, but the question is does his plan really contain cost?
3) Medicare is indeed in real financial trouble, and cannot sustain health cost escalation of recent magnitude. Either real cost containment is enacted, or the program is in trouble.
Not so far apart when you strip out the rhetoric.
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Your Honor,
If you agree there is no way to confirm promised(…what weight due promises carry when they are meant for propaganda purposes)… savings, what is the point in including them as part of mediating the cost of the proposed program, when it is at last finally proposed.
That is what perplexes me. Nothing you said sees an effective Pelosi/Reid health care law as being financially successful supported by similar programs in force now without some unidentified new ideas.
I have other reasons, based on principles, for not supporting any Government program such as this.
Where is the health care industry letter posted? I’ll try Google.
Jules
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The letter is posted here, below the video.
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Jules:
Your argument line always seem to suggest a “can’t do” attitude. When did we as a nation become so myopic? Guess it’s no longer morning in America, but twilight?
Why is it that the rest of the industrialized world can manage universal health care and a rate far smaller than we currently pay, but for some reason, we are unique in our ability to not solve the problem?
The Mayor’s point 1) is accurate: my email is full of progressive organizations that do not think that this proposal will come anywhere close to where it needs to be to contain costs. IMHO, only a single payer system that corporations will have to compete with can do that, since HMOs have created a virtual monopoly. The monopoly must be broken, or costs will never be contained. An informal agreement to cut costs with no enforcement teeth? I feel like we’ve been here before.
I agree with everything in the David Brooks article. There is much to fear. We may well end up with the debt, but not the savings. Obama is going to have to start taking on Congress and special interests if this is to be the legacy of his administration. Not an easy task, given how entrenched the interests are. If he can’t break it now, with or without his spending proposals (his spending merely hastens the inevitable, given the 28 years of debt we’ve racked up in military adventurism), we’re in deep trouble as a nation and as a culture.
-FM
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Fred,
1. My idea is ‘we shouldn’t do’.
2. All your ‘Industrial world countries’ run two digit unemployment during good times. They need cradle to grave care and extensive regulation.
I’ll stick to what we have, as imperfect as it is.
3. Your right Obama is incompitent and will not, for instance, take on unions. He is at their beck and call. Kinda like Massachusetts.
4. For you information, the debit run up by the Republicans is minuscule compared to Obamas 10 trillion impending debt.
5. Obama is unable to assemble a policy and leaves it up to your hero, Nancy Pelosi.
Fred, Can you imagine a nancy Pelosy health care plan?
Jules
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Jules:
1) That’s fair. Wrong, but fair. 😉
2) Not really. They’re running only slightly behind us. Thing is, most of EU took the consumerism to heart at least as much as we did, so their hangover will be at least as bad. However, they don’t spend as much on their collective military, and they weren’t so much into deficit spending, so maybe they’ll be the first ones out.
3) Never said incompetent. I’ll give him a year or two to find his sea legs before I pass judgment.
4) Actually, 10T-12T is what analysts put the Republican debt at, from Reagan to Bush. All the bills from the Iraq war haven’t come in yet, see. But we’ve already discussed ad nauseam why spending has to occur now, or we might as well start sharpening pencils to sell on street corners. IMHO: we’re not out of those woods, yet.
5) Actually, I thought your friend Chuck Schumer was taking the lead after Daschle left. I know he’s getting grassroots “help” from Howard Dean. I’m on that email list.
I can imagine an enhanced Medicare plan, sure. I can imagine paying more out of every paycheck to cover it and Social Security, yes, I can.
The “do-nothing” alternative is not available in this case. Your “shouldn’t do” is off the table. You will go bankrupt. You cannot avoid the problem and hope it goes away: it will not.
Now, what do you propose?
-FM
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Fred,
I came across some facts regarding the economies of our trading partners and ourselves.
Just fact, no partisanship.
I will respond on the rest tomorrow.
Jules
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Fred.
Woops http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124286297167741263.html
Forgot link.
Jules
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Fred,
Where did you get the 10-12t dollars figure?
I would like to confirm those figures.
Jules
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Jules:
Sure thing. But you’ll have to ping me on a more recent thread if you want me to see it. Happened over here by chance.
Check this document from OMB. Estimates as of 2006, I believe projections actually got worse, due to the slide to depression in 2008. See especially table on page 118.
Debt as of the end of 2010, estimated as of 2006 = 11.3T dollars.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/pdf/hist.pdf
-FM
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Jules:
PS: if you find budget information from those trading partners, that would be the key to figuring out how deep their recession / depression will be.
-FM
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Jules:
PPS: Scan down to unemployment section to see unemployment rates in EU, US, and Japan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union
Looks like the old Soviet satellites are the worst off, but countries with industry comparable to ours are suffering rouchly comparable to us. Except Japan, who must still be successfully exporting, as their unemployment rate is half ours.
-FM
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