Symptomatic Relief, but No Cure
The Obama Health Care Reform
Joseph Antos | New England Journal of Medicine
September 25, 2008

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Wilson H. Taylor
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Joseph Antos

A central premise of Senator Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency is that America is ready--this time--for sweeping health care reform. He has laid out a vision for reform that promises health insurance for (nearly) everyone, with coverage as good as that enjoyed by members of Congress. According to the campaign, the Obama plan would shift most of the 46 million uninsured Americans into health plans, strengthen employer-sponsored insurance, increase the efficiency of the health care delivery system, and save the average family $2,500 a year on their insurance premiums. These hopes are too audacious to be believed.

The Obama plan offers a host of policy proposals that, in the main, address the symptoms but not the underlying disease that afflicts the health care system. We surely could use some symptomatic relief. However, failing to address the perverse incentives that drive health care spending inexorably upward, making insurance unaffordable for millions and shaping (or misshaping) the practice of medicine, will leave us worse off than we are today. . . .

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Joseph Antos is a Wilson H. Taylor Scholar in Health Care and Retirement Policy at AEI.

 

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About the Author

 

Joseph
Antos

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    Mr. Antos's research focuses on the economics of health policy—including Medicare and broader health system reform, health care financing, health insurance regulation, and the uninsured—and federal budget policy. He has written and spoken extensively on the Medicare drug benefit and has led a team of experienced independent actuaries and cost estimators in a study to evaluate various proposals to extend health coverage to the uninsured. His work on the country’s budget crisis includes a detailed plan to achieve fiscal stability and economic growth developed in conjunction with AEI colleagues.  


    Joseph Antos is also a health adviser to the Congressional Budget Office and recently completed two terms as a commissioner of the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission.  Before joining AEI, Mr. Antos was Assistant Director for Health and Human Resources at the Congressional Budget Office and held senior positions in the U.S.Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of Management and Budget, and the President’s Council of economic Advisers.


     



    Watch Mr. Antos in an interview with Bill Erwin of the Alliance for Health Reform on "Will Health Reform Reduce the Federal Deficit?"


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