From The Health Wonk Review: The Continuing Conversation About Rising Healthcare Costs
Over the past couple of weeks it seems that rising healthcare costs are getting lots of attention in mainstream media and in the blogosphere. This week’s edition of the Health Wonk Review had an interesting post from InsureBlog’s H.G. Stern on this topic. He talked about Ben Bernanke’s assessment of rising health costs. He said Americans will be spending an increasing amount of their incomes paying for medical expenses. To prevent this, he Bernanke believes that government will have to assume more of the cost burden.
Stern disagrees, saying that over time, Americans’ taxes will increase, which ensures that we will be footing the bill either way.
But, because I prefer to focus on solutions rather than problems, I was very intrigued by a post by Maggie Mahar over at the Health Care Blog focusing on a solution to our health cost woes. I won’t give away the solution here, but it would involve asking Americans to pay a value added tax that would be specifically designed to fund health costs. (For anyone who has traveled in Canada or Europe the VAT will be very familiar.) It’s a very intriguing solution that Mahar thinks should have the support of both Democrats and Republicans. However, she’s not holding her breath waiting for a bi-partisan solution to our healthcare problems – even though unity is the theme of the hour. (I’m not either.)
Overall, there’s lots of interesting policy-related content to read in the latest edition of the Health Wonk Review. You can view it by clicking here.
