Ah Yes - Money

Tucked-away on pages A19 and 20 of the NY Times 12/19/2008 is this header:"Budget Office Sees Hurdles In Financing Health Plans," nicely packaged on a page which reports that the "good times" are no longer rolling in Louisiana and that a New Hampshire jury issued the first death sentence in "nearly half a century."

The only good news from the summarized Congressional Budget Office report was the use of computerized medical records would save the government a total of $34 billion over 10 years. Unfortunately, Robert Pear, the article's author, did not report the billions in total capital costs shifted by the government to the private sector to install and use those computerized medical record systems. Pear did report that $47 billion of new federal revenue would flow from requiring employers (those American businesses in competition with businesses in countries that do not have similar requirements) to provide health insurance or pay a fee to the federal government, that a national insurance pool for the uninsurable would cost $16 billion, that $116 billion could be saved by the government if it received a 15% discount from drug manufacturers for Medicare Part D drugs, that drug effectiveness research would save a puny $1.3 billion over 10 years as compared with $12 billion for implementation of generic versions of (presumably patented) "expensive biotechnology drugs." Pear also noted that the proposed 2010 and subsequent cut of doctors' fees, if not implemented, will cost the government about $320 billion over the next 10 years.

President-elect Obama won his election on a promise of change and improvement in health care quality, cost and access, but so far we haven't seen meaningful changes in his health policy and financing statements. Maybe we will - but more likely, we won't. The demands of the pinstripe-suited financial sector, the high-flying domestic automobile industry, the crumbling real estate industry and the health insurance industry seem to have come first.