There is a simple explanation for why American health care costs so much more than health care in any other country: because we pay so much more for each unit of care. As Halvorson explained, and academics and consultancies have repeatedly confirmed, if you leave everything else the same — the volume of procedures, the days we spend in the hospital, the number of surgeries we need — but plug in the prices Canadians pay, our health-care spending falls by about 50 percent.

Wasn’t  it the role of Insurance firms to control health care costs? The article contains set of charts from the International Federation of Health Plans Comparative Price Report to demonstrate the significant difference in fees for medical services and procedures.

“It’s unrealistic to think we’re going to get all of that money back.”

“Despite the aspects of TARP that could reasonably be viewed as a substantial success,” he wrote, “Treasury’s actions (i.e. ‘Treasury’s refusal to require TARP recipients to report on their use of TARP funds, its less-than accurate statements concerning TARP’s first investments in nine large financial institutions, and its initial defense of those inaccurate statements’) have contributed to damage the credibility of the program and of the government itself, and the anger, cynicism and distrust created must be chalked up as one of the substantial, albeit unnecessary, costs of TARP.”

The Treasury Department has spent more than $454 billion. Of the $454 billion only $73 billion has been paid back, while $317 billion remains outstanding.

Source: Yahoo! News and SIGTARP

“The key to getting health care changes passed, Graham said, is a compromise in which Republicans agree on universal coverage, Democrats agree that it be run by the private sector, and the cost doesn’t add to the country’s deficit….

The bill is an overhaul of the current system and would be funded by the money now being spent on health care, Graham said. It features incentives to reduce costs for people who adopt a healthy lifestyle, such as not smoking, he said.

If Graham agreed to mandatory coverage as a compromise, he has come to believe that allowing people not to carry health insurance isn’t an option in meaningful reform.

“The only way that works is if you can say no to people who don’t get coverage,” he said. “Well, nobody says no to anyone. You go to the emergency room, you get whatever you need. It’s called cost shifting.

“You and I are paying for people who are uninsured. Many of them are capable of paying, they just don’t. The ones who are truly needy and can’t pay, it’s our obligation to help them.”

Graham indicates that he is very willing to work outside his comfort zone, but is also going to hold President Obama accountable. Perfect, a reasoned opposition providing leadership on a key issue:

His main criticism is that Obama’s promise that he won’t sign a health-care bill that isn’t deficit-neutral can’t be kept.

For example, he doubts Obama’s claims that health-care reform can be financed partly using money from cutting Medicare waste and claims that “triggers” can be built in that require Congress to reduce costs when spending reaches a certain level.

“He’s trying to use his talents and his tone to take on a legitimate problem (health care), but he says things that need to be challenged,” Graham said. “He says things like, ‘I won’t add a penny to the deficit.’

“But when you talk about how you are going to pay for these bills, cutting Medicare is not going to happen,” he said. “Triggers, we’ve never pulled one of those triggers before.”

Obama says he is confident a health-care bill he can sign will reach his desk. Graham is hoping lawmakers and the president are up to the challenge.

“Health-care inflation in the private and public sectors is unsustainable,” he said. “So we do need to fix the system.”

Hannum thought he had a stomach flu or food poisoning from bad chicken. On Monday, his brother saw him looking ashen and urged him to go to the hospital. “He had a little girl on the way,” his older brother Curtis Hannum said. “He didn’t want the added burden of an ER visit to hang on their finances. He thought ‘I’ll just wait,’ and he got worse and worse.”

By the time Hannum got to the hospital and was admitted to surgery, it was too late. Paul Hannum, 45, died on Thursday, August 3, 2006, from a ruptured appendix. His daughter, Cameron was born two months later.

The Center On Budget and Policy Priorities report, Where Do Our Federal Tax Dollars Go? , has recently been updated (Compare to last years chart). The report breaks down how the Federal Government spent $3 trillion in fiscal year 2008. The big tickets remain:

• Defense and international security: 21 percent of the budget, or $625 billion
• Social Security:  21 percent of the budget, or $617 billion
• Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP: 20 percent of the budget, or $599 billion. ($391 billion went to Medicare)

Bernanke’s re-nomination is a politically safe decision for President Obama, and at least Bernanke is a devil we know. However, this lack of a ‘change’ for the better should squash any ‘hope’ for a genuine recovery. If the Bush years were as bad as the Democrats claim, then it is curious that they are mimicking and magnifying the same mistakes. No one has been held accountable for a financial crisis that the professors, pundits, and politicians told us would not come. All the same players are running the game, always changing the rules so they stay on top. Real ‘change we can believe in’ would be a return to our roots in the rule of law and a system of sound money – but it’s hard to stay grounded when you’re throwing money from helicopters. (emphasis added)

Here’s to some new blood and some old ideas.

Hannah Arendt:

These definitions coincide with the terms which, since Greek antiquity, have been used to define the forms of government as the rule of man over man—of one or the few in monarchy and oligarchy, of the best or the many in aristocracy and democracy, to which today we ought to add the latest and perhaps most formidable form of such dominion, bureaucracy, or the rule by an intricate system of bureaux in which no men, neither one nor the best, neither the few nor the many, can be held responsible, and which could be properly called the rule by Nobody. Indeed, if we identify tyranny as the government that is not held to give account of itself, rule by Nobody is clearly the most tyrannical of all, since there is no one left who could even be asked to answer for what is being done. It is this state of affairs which is among the most potent causes for the current world-wide rebellious unrest.

For 27 of the past 30 years, the price of education has grown at a faster rate than that of medical care. Education also grew faster than inflation for 29 of the past 30 years, while medical care beat inflation 27 of those years.

It is easy to imagine that increase in demand is the primary driver of this trend.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out for individual schools. How will the expenditures they incurred based on the need to compete in a crowded education market (new dorms, trendy dining facilities, improved athletic facilities etc.) effect their ability to compete in a changing market.

Let me state that very clearly one more time: we almost didn’t take our baby girl, who was in severe respiratory distress, to the doctor because we knew that it would hurt her chances of getting insurance.

Dan Roam of Back of the Napkin has developed an interesting slideshow clarifying what is going on in the health care debate, and the reason for reform. Check out all 4 napkins:

Napkin #1: The health care
equation.
Napkin #2: It’s not about
health care.
Napkin #3: The plans on
the table.
Napkin #4: What’s it mean
to me?