Bad News From Government Run Health Care In Vermont

See Vermont Gives the 'Public Option' a Clinical Trial: The governor claims it is 'all about containing costs.' The evidence is not encouraging by DAVID GRATZER a physician and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. From the WSJ, 5-21-11. Excerpts:

"The last time Vermont's health system gained national attention was in 2004, when Howard Dean, then governor of the state, ran for president. As governor, Mr. Dean expanded public insurance eligibility, struggling to get as close to single-payer health care as he legally could. New regulations pushed out private insurers, reducing competition. Vermont imposed a guaranteed-issue mandate, which requires insurers to sell to any applicant, and forced insurers to use community rating, which requires them to offer the same price to everyone, regardless of age and health. Both measures also appeared in the final ObamaCare law.

The result? The number of uninsured Vermonters barely budged. But costs sure moved—in the wrong direction. From 1991 to 2004, according to the Kaiser Foundation, Vermont's health costs grew by 7.6% annually. Across the U.S. comparable costs grew only 5.5% on average. From 2005 to 2008, in data cited by Dr. William Hsaio, a Harvard consultant studying this for the state, growth in Vermont's health costs grew 8.2%, against a national average of 5.7%."

"Yet data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show that U.S. health inflation rates are roughly identical to those seen in European and Canadian systems. From 1990 to 2006, U.S. health costs grew an average of 1.66% faster than the economy vs. 1.62% for OECD nations.

Socialized medicine advocates say the point is moot because government-run systems start from a cheaper baseline. That's true, but that advantage is eroding quickly. A recent paper projected that Canadian health-care costs were growing so fast that they should consume 19% of GDP by 2031."

"Single-payer countries also keep costs below U.S. levels by rationing care, not by being more efficient. Several weeks ago, the government-run, government-appointed health authority in the Canadian city where I was born admitted that a dozen patients died in the last three years while waiting for routine cardiac surgery."

"Europeans have better life expectancy than Americans because they take better care of themselves on average, not because they get better care in their hospitals.

Through their own lifestyle choices, Vermont residents already have lower than average obesity levels and below-median smoking rates."