Friday, August 21, 2009

Historical Examples of Erroneous Health Care Cost Estimates; Don't Trust Those Government Forecasts

From the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) study "Are Health Care Reform Cost Estimates Reliable? History Shows True Costs Are Often Significantly Understated":

Since the end of World War II, major health care reform proposals have generally always cost more—sometimes significantly more—than the highest cost estimates published while the legislation was pending.

The chart above from
John Goodman's Health Policy Blog illustrates the eight examples outlined in the JEC report (Table 1: By a Country Mile: Historical Examples of Erroneous Health Care Cost Estimates), including the Medicare DSH program (actual costs were 17X higher than first estimated), the entire Medicare program (actual costs are 9.17 higher than originally projected), etc.

4 Comments:

At 8/21/2009 10:40 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

There have been several efforts to require that proof of legal residence in the U.S. be part of the new healthcare legislation. Do you think those pushing for reform would pass this common sense requirement? No, it has been voted down several times in committees now! Thus upwards of
15 million illegals in the country now and mega-millions in the future just have to apply for it and they get it.

 
At 8/21/2009 11:01 AM, Blogger Colin said...

Fantastic chart. That said, only the extremely naive should be surprised by this.

 
At 8/21/2009 6:06 PM, Blogger juandos said...

Hmmm, those government forecasts in the health care business isn't the only area where they fall short, very far short...


$9 Trillion Didn't End Poverty -- What to Do?

 
At 8/21/2009 8:22 PM, Blogger KO said...

Wow, we make the NHS look downright responsible.

 

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