Health Care Debacle

This article in the Washington Post illustrates why it is going to be so hard politically to reduce Medicare/Medicaid costs:

Federal officials are conducting an unusual review to determine whether the government should pay for an expensive new vaccine for treating prostate cancer, rekindling debate over whether some therapies are too costly.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which dictate what treatments the massive federal health-insurance program for the elderly will cover, is running a "national coverage analysis" of Provenge, the first vaccine approved for treating any cancer. The treatment costs $93,000 a patient and has been shown to extend patients' lives by about four months.

Although Medicare is not supposed to take cost into consideration when making such rulings, the decision to launch a formal examination has raised concerns among cancer experts, drug companies, lawmakers, prostate cancer patients and advocacy groups.

Our health care system is going to bankrupt us as a nation unless we somehow get the costs under control. The health reform measures recently adopted were well-intentioned in terms of extending coverage to many needy people, but they really do little to address the cost issue. In fact, by giving in to the Health Insurance industry and Big Pharma, they have made the dangers of health care overspending much worse, compared to most nations that have universal health care. For this reason, I basically view Obamacare as a failure to address the real problem.

Life has limits in everything, and so must health care.  The problem is that if 'someone else' is paying for it, most people don't think there should be any limits.