A good article by Leonhardt.

As usual, the devil is in the details.

Hospital infections are a problem. But government is usually only good at applying the stick, not the carrot. To suggest that simply cutting payments for hospital contracted infections seems to imply that hospitals simply do not care enough and will only respond to a stick. If it is true they simply do not care enough, will pay cuts make them change, or simply make them cover up the diagnoses? Michigan, I suspect, did not use a stick. They "instituted a simple process."

Funding Medicare "research" sounds good. But given government's penchant for translating that into cost factors rather than cost-benefit factors, it depends on how the research is done and by whom.

Promoting "good" care sounds great. What providers fear is a ham-handed approach that simply cuts payments for all to current "good care" levels of reimbursement that Mayo says are insufficient to fund that care. Given the history with DRG's (Diagnosis Related Groups) providers have good reason to fear it. "Good Care" patterns require certain organizational, democraphic, geographic, and economic conditions to work. One size will surely not fit all. But government is notoriously famous for one size fits all, and legislators even more so.

"Choice" is a favorite watchword currently. The current bills will do NOTHING to improve choice, and with penalties for good plans and costs for employers will instead force the reduction of choices to least common denominators. Employers are neither static nor economically stupid in their choices for fringe benefits. How many will opt for discontinuing current health care plans to pay the lesser cost of penalties is uncertain, but it will not be a few. If the employee then has the "choice" to go to the "government option" and deduct his costs on Schedule A where most of his cost will not be deductibel, most employees will not like it. And if current company plan "choices" are limited to low end plans, most employees will not appreciate the benefits of "choice." And an extra 50 cents per hour in the paycheck won't begin to cover it.

The truth is that all of the bills currently in the congress are likely to make things worse, not better. Targeted individual bills attacking the most evident problems capable of solution by regulation would be better.

The problem is, that's not what politicians like. They like huge bills filled with political trade-offs and hidden agendas. They like bills that will ensure continuing contributions, either to vote for or against them depending on the interest group. And they like bills that would make Solomon throw up his hands in disgust. Those bills serve politicians real interests: reelection. Never mind that they serve the rest of us ill.

Give me a bill that simply bans red-lining previous conditions. All in favor say "Aye"

Another bill that comes to mind that I suspect would pass:

Pharmaceutical companies may not advertize in any mass media any drug that they have chosen to issue as a prescription medication: the MD should decide.