WH Health Care Czar Repeats False Claim of Lower Health Costs

[Geee]

CNSnews:


White House Health Czar Repeats False Claim of Lower Health Costs
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
By Matt Cover, Staff Writer

(CNSNews.com) – White House health care czar Nancy-Anne Deparle repeated the claim that the health care reform law signed by President Obama will result in lower health care costs despite a well-known government report to the contrary.

Deparle, speaking to the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) in Washington on Monday, said that the new health care reform would make health care more affordable by lowering premiums and reducing costs.

“The new law makes health insurance affordable for [the] middle class and small businesses,” Deparle said. “It’s one of the largest tax cuts for health care in history – reducing premiums and out of pocket costs.”

However, a report from the Medicare chief actuary found a “negligible” impact on the cost of health care. The only provision of the bill it found might have an impact on health costs was the government spending on comparative effectiveness research – a reduction of a mere $800,000 per year from the trillions in annual national health expenditures.

“We show a negligible financial impact over the next 10 years for the other provisions intended to help control future health care cost growth,” the report found. “There is no consensus in the available literature or among experts that prevention and wellness efforts result in lower costs.”

In fact, the report found that not only will the health care reform not significantly reduce health care costs – at least not for anyone but government – it won’t even stop them from increasing – a purported benefit known as ‘bending the curve.’

“In aggregate we estimate that for calendar years 2010 through 2019, NHE [National Health Expenditures] would increase by $311 billion,” the report found.

“The increase in total NHE is estimated to occur primarily as a net result of the substantial expansions in coverage under the PPACA [Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act], together with the expenditure reduction for Medicare. Numerous studies have demonstrated that individuals and families with health insurance use more health services than otherwise-similar persons without insurance.”



Deparle, however, repeated the claim, saying costs would come down “for all of us.”

“It will bring down the cost of health care for all of us. It will cut costs by streamlining administrative costs, reducing paperwork [and] reducing the burden on all of you [physicians],” she said.

The report, however, said that even these efficiency improvements were unlikely, as it was an unreasonable assumption to think that Medicare – where the efficiency reforms will be implemented – will be able to make such improvements each and every year.

“[T]he growth-rate reductions from productivity adjustments are unlikely to be sustainable on a permanent annual basis,” the report said.

Deparle did not take questions after her address, despite the fact that the event’s organizer had advertised a Q&A session. Laura E. Grove, public relations director for ACEP, told CNSNews.com that the Q&A was cancelled at the last minute at the request of the White House. Grove, who apologized for the abrupt cancellation, said that she was informed of the cancellation by a member of Deparle’s staff moments before Deparle took the stage.

Following her address, Deparle immediately departed through the kitchen.