October 22, 2007

It's really quite amusing when you think about it. I refer to the time and effort on the part of the Beltway invested in expanding this balloon, squeezing that one, a little more on the gas here, a harder push on the brake pedal there, ad infinitum. So what is it this time? Well, Senator Susan Collins (R-Beltway) last week "introduced legislation that would prevent a scheduled $6.2 billion reduction in Medicare reimbursements for home health care services over the next four years.

"The cuts, scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, 2008, are part of a CMS restructuring plan that imposes limits on routine home health care services but increases funding for more clinically intensive home care."

So there we have it, as if it wasn't obvious all along: Single-payer health insurance leads automatically to a system in which the bureaucrats decide the correct prices for a vast array of health-care services, with unintended consequences difficult to perceive but certain to emerge. A little higher price here, a little lower one there, all in an effort to produce "efficiency," as well as wealth transfers among interest groups. There is a phrase for this: price controls. Welcome to the wonderful world of bureaucratized medicine, where even the most dedicated doctors and nurses cannot escape the Beltway's gravitational pull.

Posted by Benjamin Zycher at October 22, 2007 03:29 PM

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