The PPACA and its hidden costs
Posted by
Phil Lamb on Thu, May 17, 2012 @ 09:03 AM
As we all know by now, Congress had passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) to expand health care coverage and set standards for health insurance. But, can the government make health insurance more accessible and affordable at the same time?
Not likely and not with the PPACA. A quick review of a similar program in Massachusetts suggests—along with a little common mathematical sense—that there’s clearly very little that’s affordable in PPACA. The bills will start rolling in from PPACA.
Study after study shows that the U.S. has among the most expensive health care systems in the world. The same procedures tend to cost significantly more in the U.S. This paints the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) in a corner from the outset. Add in the fact that the PPACA rolls out benefits (e.g., covering older dependents, eliminating the ability of insurance companies to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, etc...) prior to generating any meaningful revenue and a costly program becomes inevitable.
The PPACA is going to demonstrate, as we have seen elsewhere, that if something can't go on forever, then it won't. Rationing and economizing are inevitable. The benefits of PPACA have been clearly communicated in the past couple of years. What is unknown is the costs and trade-offs that will necessarily emerge in the wake of the PPACA.
