What are the Democrat health care plans?

Dr. Rangel offers a summary:

1. Universal coverage with the Federal government as the single payer. Proponents; Braun, Kunicinch, and Sharpton. Cost; over a Trillion per year at least. Needless to say, none of these candidates are anywhere near the front runners in the polls. Do these people even remember Hillary Clinton and the early ’90s? Under such a system costs would be contained via price controls, restrictions, and rationing and for all this reduced care most Americans will be hit with either higher taxes and/or higher consumer prices (in order to raise most of the trillions needed to pay universal health care many of these plans would target businesses and investments with massive tax increases and these costs would in turn be passed on to the consumer).

2. Universal coverage via employers. Proponent; Gephardt, who would mandate that all employers pay for health insurance for their employees. Employers would be able to deduct 60% of the costs of the insurance premiums (the 60% would also be for the self employed and for government workers). Requiring all employers to provide for some type of health insurance for their employees is a great idea but in it’s current form as proposed by Gephardt it is potentially the most disastrous as far as containing health care costs is concerned.

What he is essentially proposing is that we massively expand the same system that has effectively insulated patients from the real costs of health care, prevented any type of competition or market forces from controlling costs and allowed health care expenses and usage to get out of control in the first place (see my post on this issue)! Without any market forces or direct governmental restrictions to control costs, usage of health care resources would expand ad nauseum and ultimately bankrupt the system. Cost; $215,000,000,000.00 a year assuming that health care costs remain level (likely to be several hundred Billion above these estimates).

3. Expansion of current programs or new government programs. Proponents; Clark, Dean, Edwards, Kerry, Lieberman. Costs; Anywhere from about $50 to $100 billion a year. With minor differences most of these proposals would expand coverage for children, provide for more coverage for people in between jobs, and increase tax relief for employers providing health insurance coverage (though not as much as Gephardt’s plan).

What is the bottom line?

None of these plans would institute any meaningful market reforms that may help to control health care costs. They claim their plans would make health care “more affordable for all Americans” but it all amounts to little more than political slight of hand. Health care wouldn’t be made cheaper nor more affordable. The costs would just be shifted and spread around. Higher costs for employers would be passed off to consumers and the rest would be paid by taxpayers in one form or another.

The danger of many of these plans is that the more money they pour into the system the more they will stimulate health care usage and this will lead yet again to large cost increases. I would be willing to bet that any one of these plans to expand health care coverage will be costing two or three times as much as projected in the next few years alone.

Government, when it simply transfers money (e.g. Medicare), can face lower marketing and administrative costs than does a private insurance company. Or government can save money by simply getting out of the way. These cases aside, the only way government can save real resources on health care is to restrict access, typically through some form of rationing. See also my earlier post on who are the uninsured.