Health Care

I have been quite reluctant to comment much about health care. But this article in today's WSJ is well worth reading (subscription required). The best part is the realization that the only way that you can cut costs is to get somebody to take less.

We may not like it, but the only way a government can control costs is by wielding great purchasing power to get concessions on the price of drugs, physician fees, and hospital services; the only way they can control administrative costs is by providing a simplified service, yes, the Medicare model (with a 3% overhead), and not allowing private insurance to cherry-pick patients (some of them operating with 30% overheads, the cost passed on to you).

There is no magic bullet for reducing health care costs. And we should always remember that the reason why health expenditures increase over time is because they provide us something very valuable -- good health.

And, on the whole issue of costs, you can learn a lot from Diane Rogers at EconomistMom.