Marshall says go slow, but don’t kid yourself — we’ve already got a ‘Soviet-style’ health care system

At a town hall meeting in Tifton on Saturday, U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Macon) passed out his own written analysis of health care reform.

On one hand, the Blue Dog argued that we need to “gradually transition to a health care system that gives individual Americans greater control and responsibility.”

On the other hand, to critics who say we’re headed down the road to socialized medicine, Marshall says they missed the boat by a few decades. Our current system, the congressman says, is “an inefficient, Soviet-style system of central control and planning provided by health insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid.”

Marshall’s remarks were first reported by the Tifton Gazette. Staff writer Angie Thompson was kind enough to send over the congressman’s hand-out:

Health care costs force many Americans into bankruptcy. And according to some studies, approximately 22,000 Americans die yearly because they cannot afford needed drugs or treatment. These are mostly middle and lower income Americans who do not have health insurance and do not qualify for Medicaid.

All of us would like to see fewer bankruptcies and avoidable deaths. But these are not the only catastrophic problems with our current health care system. It is simply unsustainable. It is bankrupting the country.

Health care “reform” worth of that title must significantly “bend the cost curve.” Something must be done about sustainability. On our current course, all credible experts agree that health care costs will bankrupt the federal government within 20 years or so. Something has to change. And it will. Our creditors will soon force health care cost reforms if we can’t muster the will to do it on our own schedule.

Much of the health care reform debate overlooks this inconvenient truth. I can’t. Although it is tough to do politically, this reform effort gives us the opportunity to help our fellow citizens while at the same time helping the country. We should take that opportunity. I believe we need to gradually transition to a health care system that gives individual Americans greater control and responsibility for their health. Our current system is fundamentally broken. It is well intended but grossly wasteful.

Central planning and control didn’t work well for the Soviet Union. And it isn’t working for American health care, either. That’s a pretty dramatic indictment. But it’s true. Beginning in World War II, American health care gradually migrated to an inefficient, Soviet-style system of central control and planning provided by health insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid. Our current system largely divorces patients and doctors from the cost of care, causing an explosion in overall costs for little or no overall benefit.

To understand this fundamental problem, I highly recommend David Goldhill’s article “How American Health Care Killed My Father,” in September’s edition of The Atlantic. Here’s a link: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care.

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