Quote of the day...

From a discussion on rationing of health care here:

The Obama health plan, the details of which are still being worked out, will also ration health care. The alternative to that is an accelerated escalation of aggregate healthcare costs. But the single-payer system to which Obama's plan will lead will have no competitor and no pressing financial incentive to please its customers. No competitor for the single payer means no alternative for the patient. We can reasonably expect that a single-payer system of rationing will be largely implicit rather than explicit, and governed as much by cost and political considerations as by medical evidence. Such a system would likely combine the fiscal responsibility of the Postal Service, the customer friendliness of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, and the smooth efficiency of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The key phrase here is escalation of aggregate healthcare costs: everything will get more expensive.


I can only reiterate that any discussion of health care reform that does not include a major reform of tort law is fundamentally flawed. Without the latter, costs of the former cannot be held under control due to due diligence necessity of testing to enable any health care professional to point out in a liability suit that they performed due diligence. Tort law reform is a necessary prior condition to health care reform.

Period.

HT: Megan.