Analysis Correct, But Proposed Solution Doesn't Add Up

A group calling itself Physicians for National Health Program (PNHP) has issued a press release revealing the failure of Hillarycare as it was resurrected in Massachusetts by former Governor Mitt Romney (who somehow has now seen the light of his transgressions from Republican orthodoxy). Costs are up, services are hard to get, the state is going broke, and what was once free for the indigent now costs them money--that's the Massachusetts health care plan implemented in 2006. So far, so good--these are the inevitable results of government interference in the free market. (Watch for higher costs and more rationing coming down the pike soon.) However, PNHP then advocates the adoption of a single-payer national health care system "while maintaining the private delivery system." This plan is embodied in H.R. 676, the so-called United States National Health Care Act. The group claims implementation of H.R. 676 would save Massachusetts alone "about $8 billion to $10 billion a year in reduced administrative costs," but it fails to say how except that it would eliminate (now, really?) the 31-percent administrative fees built into private insurance plans. Eliminate some admin costs, yes, but all, no, but PNHP never goes into detail. Also, how does this differ from just putting everyone on Medicare? No clue in the press release. What H.R. 676 really amounts to is a massive "fee-for-service" cash grab by the physicians of America who, once they got their hands on an "unlimited" federal money spigot, would open the valve as wide as possible with a) more patients and b) more services for every patient they see. Unless they can provide better details than this crappy press release does, these physicians need to go back to the drawing board--and figure out how they can see more patients for the same, or less, than they do now. Otherwise, it's just more greedy pigs lining up at the federal trough (see banks, the Big Three, the states, housing, unions, etc.).