Collective Conscious

David Wes­sel via Ezra Klein:

The Urban Insti­tute ran the do-​​nothing out­come through its com­put­ers, and offered three sce­nar­ios. In the best case, the num­ber of unin­sured rises to 57 mil­lion, or 20.1% of the pop­u­la­tion, from 49.1 mil­lion, or 18.4%, in 2009, most of them middle-​​income adults. More employ­ers drop cov­er­age as it grows more costly. The frac­tion of Amer­i­cans on the government’s Med­ic­aid and Children’s Health Insur­ance Pro­gram, now at 16.5%, would rise sharply to between 18.3% and 20.3% — and that’s with­out the much-​​derided “pub­lic option.“[…]

This year, Medicare and Med­ic­aid will cost almost $725 bil­lion, about 50% more than Con­gress appro­pri­ates for all domes­tic agen­cies from the National Park Ser­vice to K-​​12 school aid. In 2014, the cost is pro­jected at $950 bil­lion. Gulp!

Cer­tainly this means that you can’t argue against health reform on the grounds that it will cause too much gov­ern­ment … pro­jec­tions for adop­tion of the pub­lic option were always much lower than this. “Choice” and “keep your exist­ing insur­ance” have no mean­ing in this sce­nario; peo­ple are get­ting thrown off the insur­ance rolls as busi­nesses can no longer afford it. And cost con­trols are com­pletely for­saken. Here, the annual costs of government-​​run health care pro­grams adds up to about the same as the entire cost of health reform for a decade — the costs, mind you, com­pletely ignor­ing the sav­ings bit of the bill. How’s that for perspective?