The challenge to controlling health care cost is whether you can control cost without reducing choice. That is what sunk Hillary Care.

If government wants to provide a benefit it should actually pay the cost. By forcing health care providers to take low reimbursements the providers must shift cost to the paying customers and it inflates their costs.

If government intends to provide health care to the lower income then it must make a choice how much care to provide- they will have to allocate the cost to the most necessary coverage and perhaps not include dental, psychological, cosmetic, or even life saving treatments with relatively low success rates.

Yes they will have to make life and death decisions.

For some reason in health care we believe that reducing choice lowers costs. This does not hold true in any other sector of the economy and it does not hold true in health care either.

One way to lower health care costs is for government to actually fund the commitments it has already made. A second is to return control of their health care costs to the individuals. Tax deductible Health Savings Accounts is a good start, but this option is very new and is only catching on so far with the upper income. It needs time to grow,

Employers and insurance companies have come between the individual health care consumer and their provider. Replacing this third party with a government bureaucracy will not improve the situation. It will just replace the higher costs with rationing; lowering choice and quality.

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