Chief Actuary at Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services on HR 3200 – Actual expenditures “very uncertain”.
Words of Warning. Consider the words of warning of the Chief Actuary:
* “The actual future impacts of H.R. 3200 on health expenditures, insured status, individual decisions, and employer behavior are very uncertain.”
* “The legislation would result in numerous changes in the way that health care insurance is provided and paid for in the U.S., and the scope and magnitude of these changes are such that few precedents exist for use in estimation.”
* “Consequently, the estimates presented here are subject to a substantially greater degree of uncertainty than is usually the case with more routine health care proposals.”
* “… the longer-term viability of the Medicare update reductions is doubtful.”
* “Many of the provisions, particularly the coverage proposals, are unprecedented or have been implemented only on a smaller scale (for example, at the State level). Consequently, little historical experience is available with which to estimate the potential impacts.”
* “The behavioral responses to changes introduced by national health reform legislation are impossible to predict with certainty.”
* “In particular, the responses of individuals, employers, insurance companies, and Exchange administrators to the new coverage mandates, Exchange options, and insurance reforms could differ significantly from the assumptions underlying the estimates presented here.”
Simply put, one of the top experts in Washington doesn’t know what all of this means.
via The House Health Bill: Rolling The Dice On The Big Bang Approach to Policy » The Foundry.
Leave a Reply