There is an atmosphere of unreality in congress this year as demonstrated by the Health Care Debate. One popular delusion, especially among Democrats is that money grows on trees, and that you merely have to pluck it off your more well-off brethren.
There are a number of ways to improve health care but none of them involves lowering costs. The better the health care the more it will inevitably cost. Keep the cost of health care down and the quality of the health care will also decline. If you screw Big Pharma then Big Pharma will not be developing any new miracle drugs for you. Order your drugs from Canada and you will just raise the cost of drugs in Canada.
The real problem is the fact that health technology has progressed to the point where there is actually a lot you can do about the age-old problems of getting old and dying. Admittedly we have not overcome Death itself, but give us some time and research money and maybe, just maybe we'll all achieve immortality at which time old age pension funds and social security will REALLY go to hell in a handbasket.
The thing is, nobody in the health care profession is going to do their thing without compensation. Nobody is going to want to enter or stay in the health profession when the money in it disappears. Lowering health care costs by reducing reimbursements to doctors and to insurance companies won't work because nobody is going to want to practice medicine or offer insurance if it is not profitable. As distasteful as it seems that someone profits from your misfortune of being sick, it still doesn't help things if you no longer have access to medical care because of a doctor shortage.
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