{"id":129925,"date":"2009-12-30T15:27:48","date_gmt":"2009-12-30T20:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"tag:business.theatlantic.com,2009:\/\/3.32786"},"modified":"2009-12-30T15:22:25","modified_gmt":"2009-12-30T20:22:25","slug":"responding-to-doubters-of-the-cadillac-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/129925","title":{"rendered":"Responding to Doubters of the Cadillac Tax"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is Slate’s very smart man Tim Noah on why the Senate health care bill’s tax on expensive “Cadillac” insurance plans is a bad idea<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It’s certainly true that the price and availability of insurance
\ncoverage has a significant effect on medical inflation. If insurers
\nspend less, doctors and hospitals will spend less. But how much less?
\nThe prices that doctors and hospitals charge aren’t determined only<\/em>
\nby private insurance. They’re also determined by the availability of
\ngovernment money (which will increase substantially under health
\nreform) and by what individuals feel compelled to pay out of their own
\npockets (which, in the case of serious illness, can be quite a lot).
\nIt’s therefore easy to imagine the Cadillac tax squeezing patients
\nbetween ever-lowering benefits and still-rising prices for medical
\ncare.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m not sure I follow.
<\/span>
\n
Noah says that the prices that doctors and hospitals charge are
\ndetermined by a combination of private insurance and government money.
\nBut government money already exerts a downward pressure on prices. Medicare
\nreimbursement rates are so famously low that some doctors won’t even accept Medicare patients. The government can pay hospitals
\nup to 30 percent less than private insurers because of lower
\nadministrative costs. So government stinginess is already tying an anchor to medical inflation. A excise tax on Cadillac plans would tie another. Why is that a bad thing?<\/p>\n

Well, Noah’s right that could also mean fewer benefits, worse care, a popular uprising and, ultimately, the repeal of the tax. But as David Leonhardt explains today<\/a>,
\nfewer benefits doesn’t necessarily mean worse care. From Richmond to
\nMayo to the Cleveland Clinic, there are many examples of excellent
\nhealth services without abundant care. Peeling our health care system away from the mantle of More-Is-Always-Better is exactly the long-term goal of health care reform. The excise tax is not a
\nperfect plan, but it pushes American health care away from something that is entirely unperfect and wholly unsustainable.


\n

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\n\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is Slate’s very smart man Tim Noah on why the Senate health care bill’s tax on expensive “Cadillac” insurance plans is a bad idea: It’s certainly true that the price and availability of insurance coverage has a significant effect on medical inflation. If insurers spend less, doctors and hospitals will spend less. But how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}