In today’s Wall St. Journal, Harvard School of Medicine Dean Dr. Jeffrey Flier identifies all of the major problems facing the American health care system. As he points out “tax policy drives employment-based insurance; this begets overinsurance
and drives costs upward while creating inequities for the unemployed
and self-employed. A regulatory morass limits innovation. And deep
flaws in Medicare and Medicaid drive spending without optimizing care.” He concludes that proposals coming out of Congress and the White House deserve a failing grade when it comes to addressing these problems. What I find particularly gratifying is that he further concludes that all of these proposals will simply perpetuate the status quo–a point I made several weeks back in this Daily Journal. Flier notes that “in effect, while the legislation would enhance access to insurance, the
trade-off would be an accelerated crisis of health-care costs and
perpetuation of the current dysfunctional system?now with many more
participants.”