For once I'm not going to write about S-Chip

There was an interesting opinion piece by Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, in today's USA Today. Cannon argues that so many of the uninsured have access to insurance ("As many as 20% of the "uninsured" are eligible for government health programs, so in effect they are insured. On top of that, economists Kate Bundorf of Stanford University and Mark Pauly estimate that as many as 75% of the uninsured can afford to buy insurance," he writes), increasing access to health care isn't really the problem we should be focusing on ... cost is.

He writes:

Simply expanding coverage would have little effect on the quality of care, health disparities, or how long we live, nor would it stop free-riders from shifting costs to others. In fact, expanding coverage through government regulation or tax-and-transfer programs would make our problem worse.

He makes a point about the rising cost of premiums, that they aren't

some inevitable result of market forces, but of government programs and tax preferences for employer-controlled insurance. By rewarding employer-controlled coverage — and penalizing plans that stay with you from job to job — the government strips people of their health insurance when they need it most.

He then goes on to support Bush's tax breaks. I'm not completely sure how I feel about that (I know very little about taxes, just that I seem to pay a large proportion of my very small paycheck), but I think Cannon makes a good point that plans that travel should not be penalized, especially since I do think they will be the new way of purchasing health care in the future. Regional purchasing pools are the wave of the future, I'm telling you.

Back to Cannnon ... he ends by saying

If we want to increase access to health care, our first priority must be to contain costs. Nothing would help more than 200 million cost-conscious consumers.

Letting Americans own their health care dollars is the right thing to do. And as it happens, it would also cover a lot of the uninsured.

Cannon makes some very valid points. Cost containment must happen. We as a nation cannot continue to spend as much on health care as we do. And obviously this ties into a couple other areas, such as increasing preventive care and overall health. High insurance and hospital fees are not completely to blame here ... so is obesity and not exercising and smoking and not getting regular check-ups. A change in tax policy is not going to lower costs on its own. We need to have a different view toward health altogether.