Incredulousness About Democratic Healthcare Promises is the Mainstream

If you didn't believe me last week when I posted…

We know that very few seriously believe that the Democratic reform proposals, in their current form, are going to truly reduce medical costs or control medical inflation.

…will you believe Jeffrey S. Flier, aka the Dean of Harvard University's School of Medicine, who adds quality of care and access to care directly to the list of things that will not improve under the healthcare plan currently advancing through Congress…

Our health-care system suffers from problems of cost, access and quality, and needs major reform. Tax policy drives employment-based insurance; this begets overinsurance and drives costs upward while creating inequities for the unemployed and self-employed. A regulatory morass limits innovation. And deep flaws in Medicare and Medicaid drive spending without optimizing care.

Speeches and news reports can lead you to believe that proposed congressional legislation would tackle the problems of cost, access and quality. But that's not true....In discussions with dozens of health-care leaders and economists, I find near unanimity of opinion that, whatever its shape, the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will markedly accelerate national health-care spending rather than restrain it. Likewise, nearly all agree that the legislation would do little or nothing to improve quality or change health-care's dysfunctional delivery system.