Hacker News Reader

Comment by mpyne | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps I'm the stupid one here but I was never expecting higher levels and availability of health care to be less expensive (or even as expensive), at least in the short-term. I supported it anyways because it's the right thing to do.

A cheaper health-care option would be to take the sick out behind a barn and put them out of their misery, which is why we don't turn health care into a linear optimization problem.

View on HN

It is my understanding that one of the most cited justifications for passing healthcare reform was to lower costs. Specifically, the monthly cost for individuals who need to purchase their own health insurance plans.

As the bill was being debated it was my understanding that the lowering costs would come from improvements in health as a direct result of increased preventative care and earlier detection of disease (in the stage where it is cheaper to treat).

It is impossible to have the increased preventative care come before patients' access to that care, just as it's impossible to detect illness when a patient cannot even be seen due to lack of insurance.

That was the reason I said I didn't expect a reduction in price in the short-term, because it simply doesn't make sense. That doesn't mean costs won't eventually go down compared to what they would have been if PPACA didn't go into effect, but that's getting beyond my ability to predict based just on simple principles.

Indeed:

To Save Money, Save the Health Care Act (Peter Orzag) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/opinion/04orszag.html?_r=3...;

Note that the original MA reform was never designed to lower system-wide costs; the goal was universality, not cost. The ACA was targeted at universality along with a bunch of experimental cost control reforms. You can't really point at the original MA reforms and say 'see! this proves the ACA cannot lower system-wide costs'.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com