There's a way we can all win...

Ezra makes a great point in the wake of the Administration's annoucement that they'll be focusing on health care in 2006:

But if [Bush's] proposals appear weird, that’s because The WSJ is complicit in an administration lie. There are two groups deeply concerned about health costs in this country: individuals and their employers. And individuals, as Kaiser’s polling found, are primarily worried about “having to pay more for health care.” Businesses, on the other hand, are worried that employees won't pay more for health care. This is a zero sum problem under the current system: individuals want their employers to stop shifting health costs onto their backs, and employers want to keep forcing their employees to pay more out-of-pocket. Barring a total restructuring that severs health insurance from employment, for one to gain, the other has to lose.

Ezra's got it right. One reason why it's so difficult to get minor reforms passed is because we're just shifting the costs of our bloated health system back and forth.

HSAs are just as complicated as any other head-scratching reform approach, so don't expect the public to take to them well. Any plan that boasts high deductibles (i.e. lots of $$ out of pocket if you get sick) as one of its key components will face a major struggle under the public's cost concerns. The Administration's attempts at social policy are falling flat -- even something as essential as a Medicare drug benefit was made into an unbelievable mess of paperwork and bureaucracy. Don't expect this initiative to be much different.

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[Tom Quigley]

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