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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cogito who wrote (76377)	7/25/2008 7:15:04 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543351

The part of the French system I would want to emulate is the part where people do have the choice to pay extra and get premium care. I agree with that, but a lot of people would fight it as being unfair. They are opposed to tiers of service. If health care is a human right, then everyone should get the best. When I talk about a "real solution" I am talking about one that actually reduces overall costs. Thank you for the explanation. There has been surprising little attention paid to reducing costs in the debates over universal single payer. It seems to be more of a fairness issue to the advocates. Don't ask me exactly how that would work. I have no idea. OK. <ggg>

To: Cogito who wrote (76377)	7/25/2008 8:40:28 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Respond to of 543351

<<<When I talk about a "real solution" I am talking about one that actually reduces overall costs.>>> Peter R Orszag, Director of the Congressional Budget Office, at the Health Reform Summit of the Committee on Finance, United States Senate on June 16, 2008 discussed at some length "Opportunities to Increase Efficiency in Health Care". The document is on the CBO website but was in PDF format and I didn't know how to cut and paste to SI. Good paper. With health care spending currently representing 16 percent of GDP, that estimate would suggest that nearly 5 percent of GDP—or roughly $700 billion each year—goes to health care spending that cannot be shown to improve health out-comes