Opinion: Lowering costs, not increasing coverage, central to solving health care

In an opinion piece in the Washington Post, Robert J. Samuelson argues that promoting health coverage as a right of all Americans is “utterly wrong” (Source: “Health-Care Realism,” Washington Post, Sept. 9, 2008).

He says the concept of a right to health care is too ambiguous and is one that can never be fully realized. Rather, he argues that controlling costs by creating a streamlined, higher quality health system should be the priority. Citing Congressional Budget Office projections that by 2025 $1 of every $4 of the U.S. economy will be spent on health care (compared to $1 for every $20 in 1960), Samuelson said, “greater health-care spending forfeits any superior moral claim on our wealth by slowly crowding out other national needs.”

His recommendation is that the federal government should focus on improving Medicare, a program so large and influential that reforms would consequently improve the entire health care system. Among the changes he proposes are faster adoption of electronic health records, improved case management and reductions in questionable tests and procedures.