Fortune Debunks Three Health Care Myths

Seeing that headline scared this blog for a moment as it stunk of Obama-partisan reporting from the mainstream media that calls anything the Right says about health care a myth because of a few well-intentioned, if untrue, fears that are being spread. However, Fortune instead takes on three bigger myths that both sides are guilty of, including this blog (#1 and #2), unintentionally.

Highlights:

Myth no. 1: Rising health-care costs are a problem in themselves.

We've all seen the graph that shows health-care costs increasing much faster than GDP; it's usually presented as evidence of the crisis we're in.

Take a graph with that same trajectory and label it "Sales of hybrid vehicles" or "Downloads from the iTunes Music Store," and nobody proposes government intervention to stop it. Yet health-care costs, too, are in fact revenues, and fast-rising revenues are generally seen as exciting and laudable in every industry except one. How come?

It's because we all sense that in health care we aren't getting our money's worth -- that tons of dollars are wasted. So the problem isn't that we're spending so much, but why.

That distinction is crucial because partisans on all sides will soon be telling us how their plan would slow the rate of spending growth. But slowing spending is easy -- just give people less care.

Instead, make advocates tell how their plan would address the "why" by cutting waste and boosting efficiency. When they do, make sure they don't invoke ...

Myth no. 2: The fee-for-service system is a major part of the problem.

The trouble with this reasoning is that we avoid that problem when buying other complex services, from consulting to car repair, on a fee-for-service basis.

The reason we buy loads of unnecessary health-care services is not the fee-for-service system, which we use to buy almost all services. It's that we aren't paying with our own money. Only 12% of U.S. health-care spending is out-of-pocket, a proportion that has been falling for decades.

Myth no. 3: A well-designed government plan can avoid rationing.

The Obama administration has stated flatly that "health care will not be rationed" under its plan. So let's be clear on this: Health care will be rationed. It must be. To say otherwise is to say the government can supply it in unlimited quantities to everyone.

Read the whole article here.