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Per capita spending on healthcare in the US is double that of the next highest nation even though we have 40 million citizens without healthcare coverage. The healthcare reform bill created a 15 member panel of experts that would have the authority to determine the growth in payments to healthcare providers. In fact, the main difference between the US healthcare system and less expensive systems elsewhere in the world is that they have more effective methods of limiting growth in payments to providers and they are able to deliver quality healthcare to more of their citizens. A substantial group in Congress wants to eliminate the most effective means of restraining the cost of healthcare that is in the reform bill.
The worst argument made against the panel was made by Paul Ryan. He argued that the panel would ration healthcare. He obviously understands nothing about rationing or he is a complete idiot whose brain has been affected by reading too many Ayn Rand novels. His proposal for reforming healthcare is based upon the most widely used rationing method in the world: The price system is a rationing system. Only those who have the means to afford a product are able to purchase it. His plan gives vouchers to retires so that they can purchase insurance on the free market. The problem with his proposal is that the value of the voucher would grow at a slower rate than healthcare premiums. Over time, that is an effective way of rationing healthcare tho old fashioned way, via the price system. Ryan's plan for reducing future budget deficits only works by shifting the cost of price inflation in healthcare to retirees which would effectively limit access to healthcare. Ryan believes that healthcare is a market like the market for any commodity but he fails to recognize that the market system rations commodities via the price system. Moreover, he is unaware of the literature on the economics of healthcare which shows that it has few of the features found in commodity markets.
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