Conservative critics who reject the notion of that you can reduce deficits by spending trillions miss, in part, the boat. As discussed previously, the driving force behind Health Care Reform is the curve by which Medicare promises to bankrupt the country. The logic is sound, if solipstic. Medicare contains a straight-foward, if uncreative, cost containment mechanism: legislative fiat. Unsurprisingly, overly aggressive limits cause doctors to leave the program. To maintain doctor participation, Congress has had to repeatedly override mandated caps. The proposed reform addresses this with equal uncreative straight-fowardness: If there is no market paying higher prices, doctors will be forced to accept the capped price.
The basic laws of supply and demand teach that this is not a long-term solution. Pushing down price in this manner will, inevitably, push down supply. Not only that, but the goal is, of course, to dramatically increase demand.
The apparent plan for this is a bit more creative. The idea is to privilege primary care physicians at the expense of more skilled, more expensive specialists. Considering that the current crop of primary care physicians functionally failed out of Med School, there will then be little reason not to lower standards. If Med School is made easier, more like, for example, Nursing School, you can expect to have enough primary care physicians, at lower cost, to handle the expanded demand.
There will, of course, sooner than later, be a dramatic shortage of specialists (with one notable exception). For that, the President and Congressional Democrats do have a straight forward, if somewhat copycat, plan: IBGYBG.
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