An article published on October 12, 2009 in the New York Times entitled “Current Health Care Legislation Will Not Control Medical Cost Exerts Warn” explains the fears the nation’s experts have about the emerging health reform bills. David Herszenhorn explains that experts are not convinced that the new bills will do enough to decrease medical costs. Many policy analysts, hospital offices and current and former health officials are urging adjustments that will reward quantity and quality of care to Americans.
Democrats have been aggressively pushing to pass major health care legislation this year, but with these issues arising there may be a delay. President Barack Obama has been a strong proponent of the new health reform bill, stressing that it will provide millions of uninsured Americans with health care coverage. Obama has been adamant on the fact that Americans and the government could save hundreds of billions of dollars by eliminating wasteful spending on things like duplicative scans for laboratory tests. The question that Herszenhorn raises is, “Can all that money really be saved without rationing care or lowering the quality of treatment”. Elliot G. Fisher, director of the Center for Health Policy Research at Dartmouth College, says this can defiantly happen. He suggests to “only do the cuts in regions that are growing too fast in per-capital spending because then there’s a way to guarantee sayings”.
For years senior citizens have been covered on a Medicare system that has provided them with benefits at a low cost, but now experts warn that these health reform bills will cause a rise in costs for the 250 million Americans who have insurance. There needs to be more steps taken to reduce long-term spending and more benefits to the insured. I do not think it is fair that Americans already insured are being hurt by a bill that is pushing coverage on the uninsured. This proposal needs to be adjusted so that both groups of people are benefiting.
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